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, 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
Congratulations to our four new Vaughan Williams Scholars who have just been announced.
The Vaughan Williams Scholarships of £8,000 each are awarded to applicants who demonstrate exceptional compositional talent and who are intending to make composition their professional career. Scholarships are awarded towards the costs of study of a taught Masters course or PhD in composition at UK universities or conservatoires.
Applications for 2026 will open in December 2025
.
General Funding
VWF supports the work, performance and recording of British/Irish composers from the last 100 years; as well as projects which further the knowledge and understanding of the life and music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, and of the work of Ursula Vaughan Williams.
Applications are now open. Ensembles, organisations and individuals are welcome to apply.
The Foundation also offers annual funding for postgraduate composition students.
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
Twitter feed image.
Vaughan Williams Foundation
@vwfndn
Well, we agree that the chief engineer does sound a little dull 😆
Twitter feed image.
Faber Music Publications
@fabermusic
🎵 Out today!
New definitive editions of Vaughan Williams’ The Wasps Suite and Overture offer fresh insight into one of the composer’s most beloved orchestral works.
Read more: https://www.fabermusic.com/news/new-editions-vaughan-williams-wasps-suite-overture
Twitter feed image.
Vaughan Williams Foundation
@vwfndn
📖 Ready for some racy holiday reading?!
Vaughan Williams Foundation
@vwfndn
Applications for our 2026 scholarships open in December!
In the meantime, we’re thrilled to introduce the 2025 Vaughan Williams scholars 👏
Congratulations – wishing you a fascinating and rewarding year ahead. Listen out for these talented new voices!
Twitter feed image.
Vaughan Williams Foundation
@vwfndn
BBC Radio 3’s Record Review’s Building a Library, with Kate Kennedy and Gillian Moore, will feature Vaughan Williams’ Symphony No.5 – Saturday, 2pm, and then available via BBC Sounds.
Twitter feed image.
Vaughan Williams Foundation
@vwfndn
✉️ Ralph Vaughan Williams offers advice to young composer and friend George Butterworth.
Twitter feed image.
Vaughan Williams Foundation
@vwfndn
The VWF database includes transcripts of over 5,000 items of annotated correspondence relating to the lives of Ralph and Ursula Williams. The letters are fully indexed and searchable, and can all be read online.
✉️ Find them here: https://vaughanwilliamsfoundation.org/discover/letters/
Twitter feed image.
Vaughan Williams Foundation
@vwfndn
Vaughan Williams’ thoughts on Edwardian discussions around class…
BBC Music Magazine
@musicmagazine
In this episode of the All the Right Notes podcast, we look at the phenomenon of Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending – why are we so obsessed with it?
Twitter feed image.
Vaughan Williams Foundation
@vwfndn
This letter to Rene Gattty, one of RVW’s university friends, refers to an unknown illness Gatty was suffering from. He did, it seems, recover, with a little bit of help from his friends.
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 Harriet Cohen
Letter No.: VWL976
The White Gates,
Westcott Road,
Dorking.
[22 November 1931]
Dearest Harriet
How can I say ‘no’ – when such a reward will be mine if I say “yes”? I shall claim it to the full (and the 1580th)1
Yrs
RVW
1. This letter was a response to a request by Harriet Cohen for the Choral and Chorale Prelude, which VW wrote for A Bach Book for Harriet Cohen. See Cohen’s memoir, A Bundle of Time (Faber, 1969), p.183. The reward was 10,000 kisses, the gradual paying off of which became a standing joke in VW’s letters to Harriet Cohen.
