Obituary: Raymond Warren, Composer (1928 - 4 June 2025)
6th June, 2025
The Arts Council of Northern Ireland has learned of the death of Cambridge-born composer Raymond Warren, who was an influential figure in the arts in Northern Ireland in the 1960s and ’70s.
Mr Warren taught at Queen’s University Belfast from 1955- 1972, becoming their first Chair in Composition in 1966, before accepting the post of Hamilton Harty Professor of Music in 1969. He was Composer in Residence at the Ulster Orchestra from 1966-1972.
Raymond Warren worked closely with the Northern Irish poets Seamus Heaney and Michael Longley, composing instrumental music to accompany Heaney’s ‘A Lough Neagh Sequence’, 1970, and Longley’s ‘Lares’, 1972. In 2011, Heaney made a recording of this version of his poetry with Warren’s music. Mr Warren also collaborated with one of the pioneers of modern dance in Northern Ireland, Helen Lewis, wrote music for several productions at Belfast’s Lyric Theatre, and taught several local composers who have gone on to have significant careers, including composer and former CEO of the Ulster Orchestra, David Byers, and composer and former Director of Performing Arts at the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, Philip Hammond.
Raymond Warren left Belfast in 1972, taking up the post of Professor of Music at the University of Bristol, where he worked until his retirement in 1994.
His compositional output includes operas, symphonies, oratorios, a requiem and an extensive amount of music for children, young people and community music-making.