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 Jack Gordon
Letter No.: VWL1171
From R. Vaughan Williams,
The White Gates,
Westcott Road,
Dorking.
April 11 [1937]
Dear Gordon
I was delighted yesterday and feel sure it is going to be a fine production.1 You may find it useful to have my few impressions of the one or two things that occurred to me as not being satisfactory tabulated on a separate sheet.
I feel the whole opera will play itself as you are producing it except pages 180 to 196 and I feel that it would be worth while to devote a large percentage of the available rehearsal time to getting that section really satisfactory so far as the libretto and the music allow of it.
Yrs
R Vaughan Williams2
Hugh the Drover
Act 1
page 77 John’s Entry. Ought there to be more ceremony here?
page 82 Constable & Turnkey are at present hidden by the chorus.
page 83 “Kill you so” (Gesture)
Act 2
page 180 Awkward pause at present – but we have discussed this.
pages 181-195 Difficult to judge of this yesterday –
pages 195 I suggest that when Hugh sees Jane being dragged to the stocks he should
jump up – perhaps breaking through the crowd to threaten John who
immediately releases Jane & skulks away – Hugh might advance with his
arm already round Mary or she might run into his arms in time for the cry
of ‘Mary’ and for the Constable’s ‘my daughter in his arms.
p.215 I suggest a longer period of drum taps – a distinct moment of tension –
perhaps the 3 repetitions suggested in the score are too few.
P 223 “Billy Goat” pull the Constable’s beard if he has one.
1. VW had just been to a rehearsal for a revival of Hugh the Drover (Catalogue of Works 1924/2), produced by Jack Gordon, being presented at Sadler’s Wells at the time of the Coronation of George VI in 1937
2. Signed by VW.
