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

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 open to ensembles, organisations and individuals.

The Foundation also offers annual Vaughan Williams Bursaries for postgraduate composition students.

Vaughan Williams Bursaries

Congratulations to the seven composers who have received the 2024 Vaughan Williams Bursaries towards their masters studies in composition.

Over 260 Bursaries have been awarded for postgraduate study since 1984. Applications for the 25/6 academic year will open in autumn 2024.

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

Over the last 40 years, 260 Vaughan Williams Bursaries have been awarded to help fund Masters Degrees in composition.

Find out more here: https://vaughanwilliamsfoundation.org/news/2024-vaughan-williams-bursaries/

NMC Recordings

📀 OUT NOW – Freya Waley-Cohen: Spell Book 📀

We’re delighted to announce @freyawaleycohen’s debut album Spell Book is out now! ✨

Buy/Listen 👇👇👇

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Vaughan Williams Foundation

The @RCMLondon in #London is global first for music and performing arts in the @TopUnis World University Rankings of 2024, 2023 and 2022.

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Vaughan Williams Foundation

The VWF database includes transcripts of over 5,000 items of annotated correspondence relating to the lives of Ralph and Ursula Willliams. The letters are fully indexed and searchable, and can all be read online.

✉️ Find them here: https://vaughanwilliamsfoundation.org/discover/letters/

Twitter feed video.

Vaughan Williams Foundation

Ralph Vaughan Williams created important works in most major musical forms and genres, as well as writing music for film and stage.

He championed music-making in the community, and in his adventurous reimagining of the English Hymnal, changed the face of British Church music.

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Vaughan Williams Foundation

We have compiled a great selection of links for anyone interested in learning more about the work and life of Ralph Vaughan Williams in more detail.

Find them here: https://vaughanwilliamsfoundation.org/discover/useful-links/

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Vaughan Williams Foundation

“The son of a Gloucestershire vicar, Vaughan Williams was once described as a Christian Agnostic ” – Scottish, Catholic composer @jamesmacm considers the complex faith life of Ralph Vaughan Williams for the BBC’s Faith in Music.

📻 Listen here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0012s9d

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Vaughan Williams Foundation

Vaughan William’s candid response to aspects of the second performance of his friend Gustav Holst’s First Choral Symphony.

✉️ Find Holst’s philosophical reply here: https://vaughanwilliamsfoundation.org/letter/letter-from-gustav-holst-to-ralph-vaughan-williams-3/

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Vaughan Williams Foundation

Ursula Vaughan Willimas published seven collections of poems, wrote three novels and the libretti for two operas, as well as contributing words to nine of her husband’s major works.

Find out more about her life and work here: https://vaughanwilliamsfoundation.org/the-foundation/ursula-vaughan-williams/

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Vaughan Williams Foundation

One for the philatelists among you!

This 9p stamp featuring Ralph Vaughan Williams was designed by Clive Abbot and issued in 1972.

His music continues to inspire us. Its incredible breadth of style and outlook seems especially important in our polarised times.

CHRISTOPHER GLYNN, artistic director, Ryedale Festival

Among his acts were countless kindnesses, known only to himself and the persons concerned. He gave continuous encouragement to younger men. He had the dignified humility of a great man, and was utterly unself-seeking.

SIR ARTHUR BLISS, conductor

I cannot stress enough how important this organisation’s work is, what a profound difference it is making, and how it has enabled so many to develop creatively and give new work a platform. Vaughan Williams himself would surely be so proud of this legacy. 

ZOE MARTLEW, composer and cellist

It is necessary to know facts, but music will enable you to see past facts to the very essence of things in a way which science cannot do. The arts are the means by which we can look through the magic casements and see what lies beyond. 

RVW, letter to the children of Swaffham Primary School, 1958