Ross Ray Hastings was born in Clara Barton Hospital, Los Angeles, California, on February 26, 1915, across the street from the Philharmonic Auditorium, which he was associated with in various ways until 1945. He received his early training from his father, Dr. Ray Hastings, who had a college degree and an honorary doctorate. After graduation, Ray Hastings spent a year in Germany and Paris, where he studied with the French organist Joseph Bonnet, and he was later an organist associated with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and Temple Baptist Church for thirty years. Ross began learning to play the piano at seven and began writing music at thirteen. His father taught him harmony, which he mastered at fourteen, and by seventeen he was seriously composing. Formal music, with the exception of one semester at the University of Southern California, was unknown to him. He credited his father with most of what he knew of music.

He attended Page and Harvard Military schools and graduated from Alhambra High School in California at age 16 in 1931. After his graduation from high school he had odd jobs, such as ushering at the auditorium, soda jerking, chauffeuring, uncrating furniture, hanging pants for a men's outfitting concern, and doing outside contract work selling tickets for the Hollywood Bowl. In the summer of 1934 he and a friend, Henry Putnam, took jobs aboard a Dollar Line ship bound for the Orient. Ross shipped out as a wiper, cleaning floor plates in the engine room. He later expressed that his time at sea was one of the biggest thrills of his life. Upon returning, he attended the University of Southern California for one semester and went back to ushering at the Philharmonic Auditorium. Ross always said he also absorbed a great deal of knowledge through his years as an usher in the Philharmonic Auditorium, where all cultural programs that came to Los Angeles, musical and otherwise, were performed. Since the auditorium at that time was used for all of the city's major musical events, it became as much a part of his education as his attendance at the University of Southern California, according to former UWEC Symphonic Band Director, Donald S. George.

Ross married Louise Taylor in 1936, with whom he had two children, Verdi and Stephen. In 1937 he took a job with an upholstery company as maintenance man. He worked himself up to office manager, still continuing to work for the Philharmonic at night. In 1942 at the age of 27, while employed at the upholstery company, he won $6,000 (including the $5,000 grand prize) in the Great American Operetta Quest sponsored by the Chicago Tribune and Radio Station WGN with his composition “America Loves a Melody.”

In 1946 he moved to San Diego. For three years he served as orchestrator for the San Diego Symphony under Fabien Sevitzky, who performed Hastings’s Sketch for Orchestra. Hastings was assistant conductor to Dr. Sevitzky in 1950, and in 1958 the symphony commissioned his Sonatina for Orchestra which it performed under Maurice Abravanel. In 1955 Hastings migrated to New York, where he spent his winters composing. In 1956 Hastings’s setting of “George Washington’s Prayer for the Nation” was performed on Arlene Francis's Home Show. That same year the Bell Telephone Hour presented his setting of “The Prayer of St. Francis” as part of their annual Easter Show featuring Eileen Farrell.

After Ross and Louise divorced, he married Marion Gullick in 1958. For six summers, between 1957 and 1962, he returned to California to serve as music coordinator and staff arranger-orchestrator for the Hollywood Bowl Pops Concerts; Hastings prepared orchestrations for such conductors as Carmen Dragon, Andre Kostelanetz, and Meredith Willson. Hastings continued to win awards for his compositions. In 1960 he won the National Anthem Contest sponsored by the Park Avenue Christian Church of New York, and his “Sinfonia Brevis” for large orchestra won the National Composition Competition in Albuquerque, New Mexico. “God Be Merciful,” which won the 300th Anniversary contest of the First Presbyterian Church of Jamaica, N.Y., was performed under Ross Hastings' direction by a massed chorus of five choirs at a commemorative concert of sacred music in May 1962.

Hastings’ career as an editor began in 1962 when he joined the staff of the Music Publishers Holding Corporation (Warner Bros.) where he was appointed assistant to the editor-in-chief. He resigned from MPHC in 1970 to become a part-time editor for Alfred Music Co. In 1973 he became chief editor at Bourne Co., a publisher specializing in educational music. He was with Bourne until he retired in 1979 to devote his time to composing. In 1981 UW-Eau Claire commissioned him to write a Christmas piece to involve the Symphony Band, Symphony Orchestra, and all the choral ensembles. The Joy of Christmas was premiered on December 9, 1989, at UW-Eau Claire's annual Holiday Concert and has been performed at each Holiday Concert since. After a year of illness, Ross Hastings died peacefully at home on July 5, 1991. His papers were donated to UW-Eau Claire in 1993 by his widow, Marion, according to his wishes. (Based on “Biographical Sketch of Ross Hastings” by Marion Hastings and additions.)