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. While in Belfast , an association with the Lyric Players theatre company involved writing music for many of the plays of W. B. Yeats. 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.

The pattern of this career has been of quite heavy university teaching and administrative duties (particularly after the move to Bristol in 1972), with compositional activity tending to come in the vacations. He has enjoyed this teaching (if not the administration!), but has been glad since his retirement to fulfil his ambition of being a full-time composer.