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).
Funding
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.
Applications for funding will open on 4 June. Ensembles, organisations and individuals are invited to apply.
The Foundation also offers annual Vaughan Williams Bursaries for postgraduate composition students.
RVW150
12 October 2022 marked the 150th anniversary of the birth of Ralph Vaughan Williams, and the launch of this Foundation and #RVW150 celebrations continued into the summer of 2023.
Find out more about the composer and explore some of the projects which happened in the anniversary year
READ THE LATEST
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Vaughan Williams Foundation
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Anyone facing a #Friday musical deadline? 🎶
Vaughan Williams Foundation
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Mark Lowther makes a recommendation from the available recordings of Vaughan Williams’ London Symphony for @BBCRadio4’s Record Review podcast.
Introduced by @andrewCDmcg.
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Vaughan Williams Foundation
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A lovely insight into the early friendship between Vaughan Williams and Holst.
The letter refers to Holst’s Two songs without words for orchestra, which were dedicated to VW. By ocean, RVW of course means ‘A Sea Symphony’.
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Leominster Museum
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Tickets for all three of @leomuseum’s celebrations of Ella Mary Leather & Ralph Vaughan Williams now available. Members of @MFNcharity, @VWFndn, @TheEFDSS, @3choirs, @LeoPrioryChurch, friends of @GrangeCourtLeo, & everyone else in #Leominster, catch them now! Details below!
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Fenella Humphreys
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🤩❤️Not a bad way to start the day! Thank you @MusicMagazine for picking Prism as June’s Instrumental Choice!
Big 🫶 to Matthew Bennett Dave Rowell & all the amazing composers & Rubicon Classics & @VWFndn etc.!
I’m playing lots of the music live tonight! http://Debenhamchambermusic.com
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Vaughan Williams Foundation
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To find out more about the funding we offer, and to apply, visit our website.
Details here: https://bit.ly/49ZFfLU
Vaughan Williams Foundation
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Thoughts on the work of Vaughan Williams from the conductor Andrew Manze.
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Vaughan Williams Foundation
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The @LPOrchestra invites you to come and ‘see the music’ at this year’s Debut Sounds showcase with new work by LPO Young Composers, paired with movement devised and performed by @TrinityLaban postgrads.
Supported by us!
London, June 27. Details 👉 https://bit.ly/4blrNTL
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Vaughan Williams Foundation
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One for all you tuba players!
Cliff Goodchild, whom this letter from Vaughan Williams is addressed to, spent 36 years in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (@sydsymph). We wonder if he was as amused as us by the story of the poor kitten! 🐈
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Vaughan Williams Foundation
@vwfndn
UK Music needs information on creator’s earnings to help calculate the economic contribution the industry made in 2023. This will help @UK_Music in its mission to persuade the Government to support #musiccreators.
Find the survey here: https://bit.ly/4a1tlRN
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 Dorothy Longman to Ralph Vaughan Williams
Letter No.: VWL607
35
June 10. 1926
Dear Ralph
It was immense last night & reached up to the skies & down to the depths & as far as the East is from the West: it was really blissful to sing in it – next time we will do it better still, with more transparent glass in it.
I can’t at all say what I feel about the S.C.1 it’s too wonderful to bosh about with words.
So this is all
from
Dorothy
1. Sancta Civitas, Catalogue of Works 1925/6, had received its first performance in London the previous evening in the Central Hall, Westminster.
