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 Rosa Newmarch to Ralph Vaughan Williams
Letter No.: VWL754
St Hostyns,
Chorley Wood Road,
Rickmansworth.
July 9th 1935.
Dear Dr. Vaughan Williams,
I have not been in Finland since 1916, so my advice as to practical things must be taken as being worth very little. I always made the “Finnia” my headquarters in Helsingfors. The “Societetohaus” is, or was, the more fashionable but there is one great advantage about Finland that all inns are clean, and most of them respectable.
I wish I could offer your pupil an introduction to Sibelius; I should so sincerely like to do anything in the world for you (or your pupil) that I could. But I must confess that for many many years I have had no personal communication with him. He was a great and dear friend, and is, as you say, a Great Man and to be angry with him in a small-minded way is impossible. Perhaps his nervous affection makes it as impossible for him to write a postcard as to finish his Eighth Symphony; perhaps he thinks I have departed this life – which in a sense is true. In any case I cannot reopen my old affectionate relations with him and his wife by asking even a small favour. I believe that Granville Bantock hears from him occasionally.
If your pupil would like to come and spend an hour or two in the garden here, I should be delighted to see him. I am nearly always at home, but it is wiser to telephone first.
Kindest remembrances to you and your wife,
Yours very sincerely
Rosa Newmarch
