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).

THE FOUNDATION

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.


FIND OUT MORE

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.

FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES

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.

DISCOVER

READ THE LATEST

Vaughan Williams Foundation

New composers alert! 👀 This Friday, July 10, four new pieces written by members of this year's Cheltenham Music Festival’s Composer Academy will be showcased at The Swamp in Cheltenham. Supported by the VWF.

see bluesky post

Vaughan Williams Foundation

General funding applications are now open. The Vaughan Williams Foundation provides funding for composers and for work furthering knowledge and understanding of the life and work of Ralph and Ursula Vaughan Williams. 💻 Explore our website for more details.

see bluesky post

Vaughan Williams Foundation

The love story between Ursula & Ralph Vaughan Williams will be told at the Lichfield Festival on Thursday, July 9, through the composer’s most beautiful songs, letters and writing. Starring Katie Bray, mezzo & Kieran Rayner, baritone, with Nigel Foster, piano.

see bluesky post

Vaughan Williams Foundation

For those interested in learning more about the life and works of the composer Ralph Vaughan Williams… Remembering Vaughan Williams, created by the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society, uses actors' voices to bring stories to life. Listen here 👇

see bluesky post

Vaughan Williams Foundation

Vaughan Williams' Oboe Concerto was first performed in Liverpool in 1944, the scheduled London premiere having been cancelled due to German bombing. The oboeist here 👇 is Robin Canter, with the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by James Judd.

see bluesky post

Vaughan Williams Foundation

Tomorrow! Catch a concert with the Carice Singers, showcasing emerging composers who have spent a week at the Cheltenham Music Festival developing new pieces. The Song Sung True at Spitalfields Music Festival Jul 03, 7:30pm, St Giles Cripplegate, Barbican, London EC2Y. Supported by the VWF.

see bluesky post

Vaughan Williams Foundation

Vaughan Williams had a distinguished family tree. His maternal grandparents were Josiah Wedgwood III (1795–1880), of the influential Wedgwood pottery family, and Caroline Sarah Darwin (1800–1888), sister of the famous naturalist Charles Darwin.

see bluesky post

Vaughan Williams Foundation

The "Norfolk Rhapsody No.1", based on folk songs collected by Vaughan Williams, is performed here by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Bryden Thomson.

see bluesky post

Vaughan Williams Foundation

Since 2023, the VWF has awarded grants of over £1.2 million for composer projects in the UK and abroad. Find out more, including how to apply for funding, via our website.

see bluesky post

Vaughan Williams Foundation

Bachtrack explores the creative dialogue between classical music and the visual arts – including Vaughan Williams: Job, a Masque for Dancing. Explore here: bachtrack.com/playlist-top…

see bluesky post

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.

BROWSE THE LETTERS

Letter of the Day

Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to Mary Fletcher

Letter No.: VWL2575

The White Gates,
Dorking,

4th March, 1948

Dear Mary1

It was a great pleasure to get your letter. I thought it was an extremely good performance,2 and I did not know that the young ladies of Newnham and Girton could be capable of such passion.
Very good news for us that you are coming to London, but sad for you to be leaving that beautiful place.
I must try and get you a copy of that poster by Roland Hilder.3
Yrs

RVW

Miss Fletcher,
Martinscote,
Oare,
Marlborough.

1. Sister of Dorothy Longman
2. Possibly the first performance of the Lady Margaret Singers, which comprised students from Newnham and Girton women’s colleges and male students from Trinity College, Cambridge, conducted by George Guest.
3. Rowland Hilder. See VWL2510.

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