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 Michael and Eslyn Kennedy
Letter No.: VWL2988
From R. Vaughan Williams,
10, Hanover Terrace,
Regents Park,
London, N.W.1.
January 17th 1955.
My dear Michael & Eslyn
I want to ask you a lot about John South.1 Firstly, as regards finance: owing to a surprise packet from the P.R.S.2 I have about £250 eating its head off in the stable. Do you think a loan of that would be useful or necessary to him? Could you find out? Second, as regards his compositions: can you find out if there is any chamber music, or any songs which you consider good. If so I would send them to Anne Machnaghten to see if she could put them into one of her concerts.3
Thank you also for the rest of your letter but I will stick to business in this one.
Love to you both from us both.
[RVW]
P.S. I saw that Mr Milner4 said that neither Rubbra or I had learnt the new chaos, that it was excusable for me owing to my advanced years – but that there was no excuse for Rubbra
& P.S. (U).
Where did Martin Cooper5 say that R. should go to Russia?
1. John South was a young composer – VW gave him some money and, according to Michael Kennedy, this episode may well have been one of the things which put founding the RVW Trust into his mind.
2. Performing Right Society.
3. Anne Macnaghten co-founded the Macnaghten Concerts in the 1930s together with composer Elisabeth Lutyens and Iris Lemare, which aimed to promote contemporary classical composers. The series was revived in 1952 as the New Macnaghten Concerts and ran for over forty years.
4. Anthony Milner, composer and teacher. At the time, he was a London University extension lecturer. The article RVW refers to appeared in The Musical Times, January 1955, p.29.
5. Martin Cooper, chief music critic for the Daily Telegraph, may have made the suggestion in one of his Saturday articles.
