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
We are pleased to announce that four scholarships of £8,000 each have been awarded to postgraduate students of composition.
Congratulations to our 2026 Vaughan Williams Scholars: Patrick Gorry, Scarlett Henderson, Donnchadh Mac Aodha and Dominic Wright.
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.
Funding
Applications
Since 2023 we have awarded over £1.35 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 will reopen on 1 October 2026. We welcome applications from ensembles, organisations and individuals.
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
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 from Ernest Irving to Ralph Vaughan Williams
Letter No.: VWL2771
Ealing Studios Limited
Ealing Green
London W5
21st June, 1948
Dear VW
Re Scott of the Antarctic.
The picture is now rough cut; and (lively and necessary) discussions are taking place regarding the use and adaptation of the music. I shall not trouble you with details of the guerilla warfare, but shall submit any decisions arrived at for your approval (or disapproval!).
The Main Title Music will have to be about ten seconds longer and I do not think it wise to gain length by slowing the tempo, as then the strenuousness exudes from the heels of the ski. I have, therefore, made one of the repeats indicated in your original sketch, which you will see in extension between letters C & D in the new full score.
As an alternative I have made a 5 bar prelude out of the first bars of your accompaniment. Please let me know which you prefer. Probably you will dislike both, as I do. The piece is much better as you wrote it, but I am afraid we must have the length.
The prologue is now fitted with the cuts as indicated. I have fitted it to the picture and the combination of Arctic views with the music is considered by all to be magnificent. At the end there is a bit of Aurora Australis to come to which I shall fit a piece of the music you designed for that; it is not very long. I think it will be better to omit the wind machine as there will be such a lot of real wind noises in the picture.
About the sculpture (foot steps) scene we have experimented with six or seven modes of using the music, but I cannot get them to like using the voice. Charles Frend sees in this scene only domestic felicity and will not listen to the Polar plan through Odysseus’ wax-plugged ears. I think he is wrong and like the voice, but meanwhile I have cut it outx and use only the Kathleen music.
Active operations continue over the rest of the Antarctic front. Will report when there is anything to submit.
Yours ever
Ernest Irving
P.S. Later: I think I have discovered a modus vivendi (starting with the voice).
P.P.S. They do not at present like the voices over the raining Huddersfield street (Oates’ arrival). I shall make it both ways with voices as written, & with solo violin antiphonal with 3 flutes & 1 Bassoon.
Marked in blue pencil ‘Not sent to V.W.’
