Raymond Torres-Santos

Puerto Rican composer and conductor

Raymond Torres Santos (born June 19, 1958, in Río Piedras, Puerto Rico) is a Classical and film music composer and conductor, pianist, arranger, and producer of both classical, film and popular music. Malena Kuss described him as the most versatile Puerto Rican composer active in the 21st century in her book, Music in Latin America and the Caribbean: an Encyclopedic History.

Raymond Torres Santos earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the Conservatory of Music of Puerto Rico and the University of Puerto Rico. He completed graduate studies at University of California, Los Angeles, earning M. A. and Ph. D. degrees in music composition and music theory. He carried out post doctoral studies at the Ferienkurse fur Neue Musik, Darmstadt, Germany, and later at the University of Padua, Italy. He did further post doctoral studies at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics at Stanford University, Eastman School of Music, and Harvard University. Torres Santos started performing professionally while in elementary school. At college, he began his musical career as a pianist and arranger for the Puerto Rico Orchestra, Los Hispanos, and the Mario Ortiz Orchestra at the Caribe Hilton Hotel, where he accompanied performers including Chita Rivera, Robert Goulet, Diahann Carroll and The Stylistics. As an arranger, he has worked alongside many artists, including Julio Iglesias, Danny Rivera, Ednita Nazario, Elvis Crespo, Plácido Domingo, Andrea Bocelli, Deborah Voigt, Angela Gheorghiu, Ana Maria Martinez, Anita Rachvilishvili, Rafael Dávila, and Juan Luis Guerra. He was the first Puerto Rican to receive the Frank Sinatra Award in jazz composing and arranging and also the Henry Mancini Award in film scoring in Los Angeles. Torres Santos has received other awards from organizations, including ASCAP, BMI, Meet the Composer, American Composers Forum, and the American Music Center in New York. After completing his doctoral studies, Torres Santos became a music professor at various colleges, including California State University, San Bernardino, and the University of Puerto Rico, where he was the Director of the Commercial Music Program and Chair of the Music Department, respectively. He was also appointed Chancellor of the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music. At the beginning of the 21st century, Torres Santos was a professor at the City University of New York (CUNY) for six years. In June 2008, Torres Santos was appointed Dean of the College of the Arts and Communication of William Paterson University in Wayne, New Jersey, and in 2011 was appointed Dean of the College of the Arts at California State University, Long Beach (in Los Angeles County), where he is currently a full professor and the director of the music composition program. He has traveled to perform as a musician and conductor and as a guest speaker at international events, such as the 28th, 29th, 30th, and 31st International Conferences of the International Society for Music Education held in Bologna, Italy (July 2008), Beijing, China (July 2010), Thessaloniki, Greece (July 2012), and Glasgow, Scotland (July 2016) respectively. He is currently a Vice President of the Board of Directors of the American Society of Music Arrangers and Composers (ASMAC) and a voting member of the Grammys, for which he has acted as judge.

Torres Santos has composed orchestral, electronic, and vocal music for concert hall, ballet, film, theater, television, and radio. He received commissions to compose many of his works, such as the "1898 Overture" commissioned by the Puerto Rico Government’s 1998 Centennial Commission; "Conversations with Silence," commissioned for the New Jersey Chamber Music Society; "Jersey Polyphony," commissioned by the American Composer Forum Continental Harmony Project; "Danza" (Variation on a Theme by Mozart) commissioned by the Casals Festival; "La cancion de las Antillas," commissioned by the Puerto Rico Symphony; and "Juris Oratorio," commissioned by the University of Puerto Rico. Other orchestral works include: "El Pais de los Cuatro Pisos," a symphonic poem, and "Sinfonia del Milenio," a symphonic tour of history from creation to present times in an audiovisual format. In 2014, "Symphonia: Resonantia Luminosa Infinita" for brass and orchestra was commissioned by the Casals Festival.

Torres Santos' works have been performed or commissioned by the American Composers Orchestra; National Chinese Orchestra; Warsaw Conservatory of Music Chorus and Orchestra; Pacific Symphony; Reading Orchestra; Queens Symphony; North Massachusetts Philharmonic, Soria Symphony (Spain); the Canadian Opera Company Orchestra; the (national) symphony orchestras of London, Vienna, Vancouver, Toronto, Taipei, Virginia, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic; Youth Symphony of the Americas; American Youth Symphony; Bronx Arts Ensemble; Continuum; New Jersey Chamber Music Society; West Point Woodwind Quintet; Newark Boys Choir; North Jersey Philharmonic Glee Club; North/South Consonance; Quintet of the Americas; Voix Touche; and many other independent groups in the US, Spain, Italy, Germany, and Argentina. His music has been played at the Casals Festival, World Fair in Seville, Venice Biennale, and Op Sail 2000. It has been used for television and radio programs and choreographed by dance companies.

Among recordings of his works are La Canción de las Antillas, recorded by the Puerto Rico Symphony Orchestra in 1990; Requiem, released by RTS Music Records in 1997 and featuring mezzo soprano Ilca Lopez and baritone Rafael Cotto; Fantasia Caribeña, recorded by the San Juan Pops Orchestra in 2000; and Jubilum in 2017, Aureola in 2019, Satellites, Drones and Planes in 2021 and Guakia Baba in 2022 under the RTS Music label. His music arrangements have been recorded by Sony Music (classical and pop). In 2014 he also produced under RTS Music, Antillano, as a jazz pianist.

As a studio and jazz pianist in Los Angeles, he worked with the Maynard Ferguson, Freddie Hubbard, Bobby Shaw, and Tito Puente and has been featured in film scores.

He has conducted the London Session Orchestra, Taipei Philharmonic, Cosmopolitan Symphony Orchestra, Puerto Rico Symphony and Philharmonic Orchestras, Dominican Republic National Orchestra, Queens Symphony Orchestra, Adelphi Chamber Orchestra, Bronx Arts Ensemble Orchestra, and Hollywood Studio Orchestras in concerts and recordings. He was the music director for pop and jazz singers: Vikki Carr and Dianne Schuur.

He has written articles in peer reviewed journals from Hofstra University and CUNY, as well as the Cambridge Scholar Publishing and Almenara Press. He is the general editor of Music Education in the Caribbean and Latin America, published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishing in conjunction with the National Association for Music Education (NAfME).