Raymond Warren obituary

The Guardian

6 days ago

My friend Raymond Warren, who has died aged 96, was a composer of classical music who taught at Queen's University Belfast and then the University of Bristol.
Many of Raymond's pieces were concerned with Christian responses to suffering, but he also wrote music for children and young people. A late success was his charming score for Ballet Shoes, written for the London Children's Ballet, which was performed at the Peacock theatre in London in 2001 and revived by that company in 2010 and 2019.
Born in Weston-super-Mare, Somerset, Raymond was the eldest child of Arthur, a maths teacher and keen amateur musician, and Gwendoline (nee Hallett), a shorthand typist. He went to Bancroft's school in Woodford Green, east London, and then studied music at Cambridge. After graduating, he began teaching music at Queen's University Belfast in 1955, where he was given a personal chair in composition in 1966, before becoming professor of music there in 1969.
By then receiving national attention for some of his compositions – including The Pity of Love, written for Peter Pears and Julian Bream to perform at the 1966 Aldeburgh festival – he became resident composer to the Ulster Orchestra and a key figure in the Belfast festival at Queen's (now known as the Belfast international arts festival) from its inception in 1962.
As the political atmosphere in Northern Ireland became increasingly tense, his music became a witness to events: Songs of Unity (1968), a work for children that celebrated ecumenism, was picketed by Ian Paisley at its premiere, and his powerful Second Symphony (1969) reflected the growing sectarian conflict of the time.
Collaborations followed in 1970 with the choreographer Helen Lewis (There Is a Time, for double choir and dancers at the Cork choral festival) and with Seamus Heaney (A Lough Neagh Sequence, seven Heaney poems accompanied by Raymond on piano). Heaney also made a recording of his poetry with Warren's music in 2011, shortly before his death.
Raymond left Belfast in 1972 to take up a position as chair in music at the University of Bristol, a post he held until retiring from teaching in 1994, although he remained active as a composer for many more years.
His wife, Roberta (nee Smith), a textile artist whom he married in 1953, predeceased him in 2022. He is survived by their four children, Tim, Christopher, Ben and Clare, and eight grandchildren.