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 Open
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.
Funding
Vaughan Williams Scholarships
Applications are now open for the 2026 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.
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.
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 Grace Williams
Letter No.: VWL3834
The White Gates,
Westcott Road,
Dorking.
[1930]
My Dear Grace
I am so glad about the Farrar prize – you were also put down ad proxime for the Sullivan & this I hoped wd have been printed in the list – but it wasn’t.1
You must come up for Betty’s2 evening & we will try to meet if you will tell me where you will be staying – though I will not interfere with any one nice & young you may want to make an appointment with.
Its all right about the parts of the suite3 that’s my birthday present (whenever your birthday is) I think it’s quite soon to have the suite tried over by the Welsh orchestra – I will try & arrange for Sargent to do it at the beginning of next term but he is very elusive.4
I’m sorry I can’t answer your question about the Bach C# minor – because all my copies are in London stupidly – I … score
But my darling Grace – it’s not my cheque. I told you its a bit of a sum of £50 which has been entrusted to me by the committee of the Leith Hill Festival to use for musicians as I think fit.
& I think that to help your composer with the awful expence of band parts is a v. good way of using some of the money. Besides it will give a job to Lilian Mukle (who badly needs it) or any one else you like to employ – so please use it & please me
Your loving Uncle Ralph
1. Williams won the Ernest Farrar composition prize at the Royal College of Music in 1930. The Sullivan prize was another composition prize at the Royal College of Music.
2. Elizabeth Maconchy, a fellow student and composer.
3. Presumably the Suite for orchestra (1932)
4. Malcolm Sargent, the conductor
