Raymond Tilton was born in San Marcos and trained at San Elijo Dance Academy prior to becoming a Trainee with the San Francisco Ballet School. In 2010, Raymond was named an Apprentice with San Francisco Ballet and later joined the company as a Corps de Ballet member in 2011. With his time at San Francisco Ballet, Raymond danced in numerous works by choreographers such as: George Balanchine, John Cranko, John Neumeier, Christopher Wheeldon, Yuri Possokhov, Jerome Robbins, Helgi Tomasson, and Alexei Ratmansky among others.
In 2015, Raymond joined Diablo Ballet where he was featured in roles such as George Balanchine!s Apollo, Who Cares, and Valse Fantasie, as well as Stanton Welch’s Orange and Christopher Wheeldon’s Carousel (A Dance) and Mercurial Maneuvers. In addition, Raymond danced roles in classical pas de duex’s including Black Swan pas de deux, Coppelia Wedding pas de deux, Raymonda Act 1 & 3 pas de deux, among others.
In addition to dancing, from 2019 to 2022, Raymond served as the School Principal of the Diablo Ballet School in addition to being a Company Teacher. Mr. Tilton has also choreographed works for Diablo Ballet (Ballestra in 2020) and Diablo Ballet School (l’ isolement in 2020, Dream Scene from Don Quixote, and Waltz of the Flowers & Arabian from The Nutcracker)