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 new 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, 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).

THE FOUNDATION

Funding

Applications are open

VWF supports the work of British/Irish composers from the last 100 years, as well as projects which further the knowledge and understanding of the life and music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, and of the work of Ursula Vaughan Williams.

We welcome applications from organisations and individuals.

Find out more

RVW150

12 October 2022 marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Ralph Vaughan Williams, and the launch of this Foundation but #RVW150 celebrations have been in full swing since the beginning of the year and will go on into the summer of 2023.


Find out more about the composer and explore some of the projects going on in the anniversary year

RVW150

READ THE LATEST

Vaughan Williams Foundation

We love this photo of Ralph Vaughan Williams as a young man 😍 Find more pictures on our website – they are free to use, just pop us a credit: https://t.co/rTWEGEu4YQ

Vaughan Williams Foundation

“A feast of RVW’s choral music” – a review of an #RVW150 concert with St Peters Singers at Leeds Cathedral. https://t.co/yF2U4E9jWQ

Vaughan Williams Foundation

#RVW150 is a celebration of Ralph Vaughan Williams with performances, recordings, new works and imaginative projects around the country (and beyond) which widen our understanding of this many-faceted composer. 🎼 https://t.co/o51SL5cXtA

Vaughan Williams Foundation

Vaughan Williams’s Serenade to Music offers radiant calm before the emotional storm of Tippett’s A Child of Our Time… @LPOrchestra performs in Saffron Walden on Sunday, with a spectacular line-up of soloists. Tickets here 👇https://t.co/WCoASWOXBO #RVW150

Vaughan Williams Foundation

Happy #Purrsday! We wonder what this gift was???? 😸 #CatsOfTwitter

Vaughan Williams Foundation

The film Scott of the Antarctic is justly famous for its score by Vaughan Williams, who later turned elements into his Seventh Symphony. Scott of the Antarctic Live in Concert in #Glasgow on Saturday features @BBCSSO, @LizWattsSoprano. #RVW150 🎟 ⬇ https://t.co/FNdFt5fYaI

Vaughan Williams Foundation

We support #composers by funding projects and providing postgraduate bursaries. Bursary applications open on December 1 – details here: https://t.co/T1DkC9rPFr

Vaughan Williams Foundation

Crickhowell Choral Society’s November 26 concert will be a celebration of the 150th anniversary of the birth of Ralph Vaughan Williams. #RVW150 https://t.co/3Tbx7rUrfQ

Vaughan Williams Foundation

In Ralph Vaughan Williams’s 150th birthday year, #Preston Cecilian Choral Society performs a selection of his choral works to illustrate the rich variety of his compositions and mastery of the English choral style. Details here: https://t.co/fl9FRWm5rj

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.

Search the letters

Letter of the Day

Letter from Ralph Vaughan Williams to the Misses Piper

Letter No.: VWL4064

[December] 1941

Fire Watching Jan & Feb

Thursday Jan 1st
Tuesday    –    13
Tuesday    –    27
Friday Feb 6
Wednesday Feb 18

Hours 11.p.m. – 7.0 A.M.

 

His music continues to inspire us. Its incredible breadth of style and outlook seems especially important in our polarised times.

CHRISTOPHER GLYNN, artistic director, Ryedale Festival

Among his acts were countless kindnesses, known only to himself and the persons concerned. He gave continuous encouragement to younger men. He had the dignified humility of a great man, and was utterly unself-seeking.

SIR ARTHUR BLISS, conductor

I cannot stress enough how important this organisation’s work is, what a profound difference it is making, and how it has enabled so many to develop creatively and give new work a platform. Vaughan Williams himself would surely be so proud of this legacy. 

ZOE MARTLEW, composer and cellist

It is necessary to know facts, but music will enable you to see past facts to the very essence of things in a way which science cannot do. The arts are the means by which we can look through the magic casements and see what lies beyond. 

RVW, letter to the children of Swaffham Primary School, 1958