Richard Rodney Bennett was born at Broadstairs, Kent. He was very gifted as a child and had some private lessons with the composer Elisabeth Lutyens when he was 10. He studied at the Royal Academy of Music with Howard Ferguson, Lennox Berkeley and Cornelius Cardew. During this time, he went several times to Darmstadt where some of the most famous modern composers of the time met every summer to discuss ideas, particularly serialism.