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 £1.2 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.
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 Adeline Vaughan Williams to Victor Sheppard
Letter No.: VWL3770
The White Gates, Dorking
May 23 1948
Dear Mr Sheppard
You have sent us another delightful parcel – we shall dip into the tin of Cape Gooseberry jam with much interest – It was kind of you to send it & everything travelled well except the lard which leaked a little through its cover but did non harm. It is very useful.
Can you hear our BBC programmes? My husband’s Masque “Job” has just been given at Covent Garden with full orchestra for the first time1 – I have always wanted this so much – Sir Adrian Boult conducted – The choreography was better in many ways – the scenes not so faithful to Blake
You will be in the midst of elections this week – I admire General Smuts perhaps more than any of our public men – he seems to have such wisdom.
Miss Watts wrote me a very nice letter – I hope you are both happy & that all goes well
With best wishes
Adeline Vaughan Williams
1.1.Job was revived at Covent Garden on 20th May, with Robert Helpmann as Satan, though Anton Dolin also returned to play Satan in June. There were new costumes and scenery by John Piper. The papers reported, as AVW does, that the full orchestration was used for the first time, but it was not so. Constant Lambert, who made the reduced orchestration used early on, protested that this was used for only a short time and the full orchestra was heard for at least six years before the war.
