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 Ralph Vaughan Williams to Edward J. Dent
Letter No.: VWL308
13 Cheyne Walk
S.W.
[January 1910]
Dear Dent
I have delayed answering your last letter because I was thinking things over.
Now (a) would you very much like to have Carey1 – I hardly know his singing but cd easily arrange a programme with him and the Schwiller 4tet – and I trust your judgement entirely or (b) are you keen on having my new “Shropshire Lad”2 cycle – which I consider my best recent work. This however necessitates Gervase Elwes.3 However if you thought of this I should like to guarantee the expense of him myself – partly because he was very kind in doing a concert with me (which practically meant singing at my concert for nothing) and I feel I owe him something.
Of course the difficulty about him is that he is very busy and wd have to be engaged some time before hand.
Now, there is another point. I had a queer letter from Schwiller the other day saying that the C.U.M.S.4 were perhaps going to ask his 4tet down! This doesn’t seem likely – but I mention it for what it is worth as in case it is true you might not care to have them also.
If you settle on the pfte 5tet wdyou play the pfte part?
I think (apart from the singer) we ought to manage the 4tet and 5tet for 30 guineas. The Schwiller 4tet wd (I hope) be £4-4-0 & the C. Bass another £4-4-0.
I am sending you herewith two great works!5
(1) Sea Symph. is I hope my magnum opus – it has taken me about 6 years to do.6
(2) W. Wood7 was started also years ago but was finally revised this year.
Yrs
RVW
1. Clive Carey, singer and composer.
2. i.e. On Wenlock Edge.
3. Gervase Elwes (1866-1921) English tenor who started singing professionally in 1903 following a period in the diplomatic service. He had given the first performance of VW’s On Wenlock Edge in the Aeolian Hall on 15th November 1909.
4. Cambridge University Music Society
5. The vocal scores of both works had been published by Breitkopf (London) in 1909.
6. The Sea Symphony was undoubtedly VW’s largest and most ambitious work to date, and has remained one of his best-known works ever since. It was first performed at Leeds on 12 October 1910, some months after the probable date of this letter.
7. Willow Wood was a much neglected work after its early performances and was not seriously revived until it was recorded in 2005.
