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

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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

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Vaughan Williams's Twitter feed image.

Vaughan Williams Foundation

📻 Some weekend listening…

Vaughan Williams’s Symphony No.5 in Building a Library with Kate Kennedy and Gillian Moore on BBC Radio 3’s Record Review

Find it via BBC Sounds here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002f77z

Vaughan Williams Foundation

Sancta Civitas was one of Vaughan Williams’s favourite choral works. Catch it tonight at the first night of #BBCproms and live on @BBCRadio3!

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Vaughan Williams Foundation

Vaughan Williams was born in the Vicarage in Down Ampney on October 12, 1872, to the Vicar, Rev Arthur Vaughan Williams and his wife Margaret, who was a member of the Wedgewood family and niece of Charles Darwin.

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Vaughan Williams Foundation

Supporting the work of professional composers! 🎼

We fund the performance, commissioning or recording of music by professional British/Irish composers active in the last 100 years; or projects and organisations in the UK which create developmental opportunities for composers.

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Vaughan Williams Foundation

We can all identify with the concept of ‘polarised times’ … we’re grateful to have beautiful music to turn to, to remind us of the beauty in the world.

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Vaughan Williams Foundation

RVW dedicated one of his compositions to the village of his birth – the tune to the hymn ‘Come down, O love divine’ is named ‘Down Ampney’; and one of his compositions titled ‘Linden Lea’ has been used as a road name in the village, as a mark of respect.

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Vaughan Williams Foundation

An unusual sentiment from a composer here 😆

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Vaughan Williams Foundation

This year, for the first time, we extended our postgraduate funding opportunities to PhD students (find out more about this year’s recipients via our website).

Applications for 2026/27 funding will reopen in December 2025.

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Vaughan Williams Foundation

Looking for ways to stay cool in a #heatwave?? 🥵

Vaughan Williams’ Sinfonia Antarctica delivers icy winds, wordless choirs, and vast, frosted soundscapes that seem to go on forever… ❄️

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Vaughan Williams Foundation

Find out more about the opportunities offered by the VWF via our website.

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