Originally from the Languedoc, he undertook his first musical studies in Béziers, in particular with Paul Fouquet.
His personal musicality stood up through an atonal essence language that renounces neither polytonality nor tonal pivot usage.
For many years Roger Calmel taught at French Radio and Television children's choir school, before becoming the head of the Darius Milhaud music conservatory in the XIVth arrondissement in Paris.
From 1991 to 1998, he worked as an inspector in Ateliers Musicaux for the Paris council.
Since then, and following the requests made by the "A Coeur joie" movement, Pueri Cantores and many other festivals and choirs, he spent a large part of his time writing several works based on vocal music.