People

Raymond Warren

Composer

Raymond Warren was born in 1928 and studied at Cambridge University (1949-52) reading mathematics at first and then changing to music under Boris Ord and Robin Orr: later he studied privately with Michael Tippett (1952-60) and Lennox Berkeley (1958). From 1955-72 he taught at Queen's University, Belfast, where from 1966 he held a personal Chair in composition. For the years 1966-72 he was Resident Composer to the Ulster Orchestra, writing for them a number of orchestral works and also conducting the orchestra in a series of Sunday afternoon concerts of contemporary music. In 1972 he was appointed professor of music at the University of Bristol, a post from which he retired in 1994. 
His compositions cover a wide range of genres. Of his six operas three are large-scale church works for children, and two of the oratorios are passion settings. Orchestral music includes three symphonies, a violin concerto written for Erich Gruenberg, the suite Wexford Bells, and for the theatre, Ballet Shoes, composed for the London Children’s Ballet. Two of the string quartets were written for the Dartington String Quartet and the second of the wind quintets, Picasso Pictures was nominated for a British Academy award in 2006. Among many vocal works are two song cycles commissioned by and for Peter Pears and the choral Golden Rings and The Death of Orpheus. 

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UHR023: The Next Ocean - Raymond Warren, Seamus Heaney