Welcome to the Vaughan Williams Foundation – one of the foremost sources of funding for recent and contemporary music in the UK
The Vaughan Williams Foundation is a grant-giving charity which upholds the values and vision of the celebrated composer Ralph Vaughan Williams and his wife Ursula Vaughan Williams.
Our principal aims are to honour RVW’s desire to support his fellow composers through funding for performances and recordings, and to help make his own work widely accessible to the general public.
VWF was founded in 2022, 150 years after the composer’s birth, and brings together the two charities originally set up by Ralph (RVW Trust) and Ursula (Vaughan Williams Charitable Trust).
Funding
Vaughan Williams Scholarships
Applications are now open for the 2026 Vaughan Williams Scholarships.
4 scholarships of £8,000 each are awarded annually to postgraduate students of composition.
For more than 40 years Vaughan Williams funding has been awarded to support postgraduate study in composition. The 270 previous recipients have included names such as Julian Anderson, Christian Alexander, Anna Meredith, Graham Fitkin, Larry Goves, Gavin Higgins, Hannah Kendall and Daniel Kidane.
Congratulations to our 2025 Vaughan Williams Scholars: Tom Burkhill, Lucy Holmes, André Faria Serra and Elliott Park.
Funding
Applications Open
Composers are at the heart of what we do. VWF offers three annual funding rounds towards:
the performance, commission and recording of music by British and Irish composers active in the last 100 years, and/or
work which furthers the knowledge and understanding of the life and work of Ralph Vaughan Williams, and of Ursula Vaughan Williams.
We welcome applications from ensembles, organisations and individuals.
Our new Trustees
Joining the Board
We are delighted to announce the appointment of Sam Wigglesworth, Harriet Wybor and Raymond Yiu as new Trustees, bringing with them a wealth of experience and a passion for music.
We are so grateful for their commitment to the Foundation and look forward to working with them to develop VWF for the future.
Find out more about the faces behind the VWF and our work.
RVW
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) is one of the greatest of British composers whose music, generosity and vision for community music making continue to impact British musical life.
Find out more about the composer and explore our extensive archive of letters and photographs and catalogue of published works.
READ THE LATEST
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Vaughan Williams Foundation
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A thought for composers from RVW! 🎼
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Vaughan Williams Foundation
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Stephen Johnson reveals for BBC Radio 3 how Vaughan Williams transformed the music of his most famous film score to create an Antarctic symphony.
🎧 Listen here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b03g31d6
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Vaughan Williams Foundation
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The Vaughan Williams Foundation funds the work of composers and projects relating to the life and work of Ralph and Ursula Vaughan Williams.
We have 3 deadlines annually for general funding – the next is in the spring 🌷
Check our website for more details 💻
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Applications for 26/27 now open!
Vaughan Williams Scholarships of up to £8K each for postgraduate composition study will be awarded in 2026.
Applicants should demonstrate exceptional talent and be planning a career in composition.
Details here: https://vaughanwilliamsfoundation.org/funding/postgraduate-funding/
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This piece was written for the London Central Fellowship Band & Bandmaster David Rudd. It’s based on the hymn For all the Saints by Vaughan Williams, and its 2022 release marked the 150th anniversary of RVW’s birth.
Performed by the Canadian Staff Band: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QZ1pYH0ftv0
Vaughan Williams Foundation
@vwfndn
The principal aims of the Vaughan Williams Foundation are to make the work of Ralph Vaughan Williams widely accessible to the general public and to honour his desire to support his fellow composers.
Young Classical Artists Trust
@ycatrust
Vaughan Williams’ rarely heard Piano Quintet, performed by Trio Concept, Will Duerden and Jaren Ziegler ✨
The inclusion of double bass makes this an unusual line-up, adding richness to Vaughan Williams’ sound world.
Full performance on our YouTube channel!
#YCATartists
Decca Classics
@deccaclassics
Vaughan Williams’ The Lark Ascending was written in 1914 and completed after the First World War. It features a soaring solo violin line inspired by George Meredith’s poem of the same name.
📹 Nicola Benedetti, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall
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Ralph Vaughan Williams’ second wife, Ursula, published seven collections of poems & contributed words to several of Vaughan Williams’ works. She wrote three novels, a biography of RVW & the libretti for two operas.
In 2002, her autobiography, Paradise Remembered, was published.
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Cheltenham Town Hall, 3pm, February 1 – English Symphony Orchestra Residency: Elgar, Vaughan Williams & Sawyers, featuring Vaughan Williams: Overture to The Wasps.
Conductor: Kenneth Woods
Violin: Zoe Byers
Details here: https://cheltenhamtownhall.org.uk/event/english-symphony-orchestra-residency-elgar-vaughan-williams-sawyers/
THE LETTERS OF RALPH VAUGHAN WILLIAMS
Featured Letter
Get to know the man and his music
RVW’s wide-ranging correspondence – with family, pupils, fellow composers, conductors and performers – paints an intriguing portrait of the man, as well as providing fascinating insights into his major preoccupations: musical, personal and political.
Our searchable database includes over 5000 annotated transcriptions of his correspondence all available to read online.
Letter of the Day
Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Gustav Holst
Letter No.: VWL264
Hawgoods Temperance Hotel
Bramber
Sussex
[Late July 1899]
Dear V.H.
This isn’t really a hotel but a refreshment room and tea gardens with apartments attached. We stay here any way till Friday and perhaps a week more. I think it is a good place for work. I have done 4 pages of full score today which is rather good for me.1
We have just come from a most magnificent evening walk – first a sunset seen from the downs – then blue twilight then stars and nearly losing our way and then home.
Do send me some more of your adorable programmes – I laughed out loud for a whole day over that one. I do hope your hand is really better – your looking glass style2 is magnificent.
I spent Sunday and Saturday evening with Howard Jones3 and we walked about and sat on gates till 12 p.m. and talked about music and organs and success and other incongruous subjects. He wants you to write to him but I explained that your hand was too bad. He is very much excited over playing to D’Albert.4
I will write to Gatty about Granville-Whitman (no I mean Walt-Bantock5) – Gatty’s variations were badly played and splendidly reviewed.6
Yrs
R.V.W.
1. This was probably either for the Mass written for his Mus. Doc., Catalogue of Works 1899/F, or the Serenade for small orchestra in A minor, Catalogue of Works 1898/1.
2. i.e. of handwriting with the left hand. Holst had persistent neuritis in his right arm.
3. Evlyn Howard-Jones, one of VW and Holst’s circle at the Royal College of Music and later a successful pianist.
4. Howard-Jones went to study with d’Albert after finishing in the Royal College of Music.
5. It is not clear what the link between Walt Whitman and Granville Bantock was that gave rise to this joke.
6. Referring to a concert in which Gatty’s Variations on Old King Cole for orchestra were played; see The Musical Times, 1 August, 1899.
