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
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.
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.
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 Alan Frank (OUP)
Letter No.: VWL3344
From R. Vaughan Williams,
10, Hanover Terrace,
Regents Park,
London, N.W.1.
June 27th 1956.
Dear Frank,
I should like to see Mr Neve’s version and comments very much. But I am not quite happy about converting it into a school operetta, especially if that means cutting out all the more emotional parts, or, at all events, reducing them to a minimum. I want it to be available for all amateurs, and feel sure young ladies at Peter Jones would revel in the love scenes! Could we make a full version with optional cuts? But it seems that the first thing to do is to get the libretto into our power by buying it from Joan Sharp, to whom I understand it belongs. If we have not at present got any further I would suggest that I should buy it from Joan, and then you should take it over from me as if it were one of my compositions, and pay me a royalty on it.1
Yrs
RVW
P.S. Would you like to come and see me about it? I am stuck in bed with a bad leg – not serious, only tiresome – so it will have to be that way round.2
RVW
1. Frank had written the day before reporting proposals from William Neve, who had produced The Poisoned Kiss, Catalogue of Works 1936/4, at Cheltenham School, for adapting it as a school operetta: the libretto needed revision, perhaps based on the version prepared for their performance and the music needed simplification in the vocal parts with the accompaniment adapted for two pianos and percussion. Frank was worried about the need to keep the length of the work within reasonable limits. The libretto had been written by Evelyn Sharp, sister of Cecil Sharp. Joan was Cecil’s daughter.
2. VW had phlebitis of the leg – see R.V.W.: a biography, p.373.
