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
Applications
Since 2023 we have awarded over £1.2 million to composer projects.
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.
Applications are currently open. 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.
Funding
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.
Our 2026 scholars will be announced at the end of June.
READ THE LATEST
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 Adrian Boult
Letter No.: VWL1884
The White Gates
April 1 [1945]
Dear Adrian
We want to thank you very much for a fine performance of St John – clarity & emotion combined which one seldom gets together. I thought all the soloists with one exception which I will not specify were very good. If I may venture on one criticism I think the long wait between the numbers interferes with the continuity – Of course one wants pauses at the end of each episode otherwise I feel that each number should be attacca. What a pity that the 1st Chorus is not up to the level of the rest – Would you consider one substituting ‘O Mensch bewein’ from St Matthew which I believe was originally the opening chorus of St John?1
Your Narrator was splendid.2
Our love to Ann.
Yrs
RVW
1. This, according to Northrop Moor, related to a broadcast performance of Bach’s St John Passion from the wartime headquarters of the BBC at Bedford. The broadcast was on 30 March (Good Friday in 1945), with Part 1 at 3:40-4:30 and Part 2 and 7:20-9:00 (according to Radio Times, issue 1121 (25 March 1945), p. 16).
2. The Evangelist (i.e.the ‘splendid’ Narrator) was Peter Pears.
