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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Leominster Museum
@leomuseum
A reminder: the first in @leomuseum’s series of events celebrating the life of Ella Mary Leather is now just over a month away. Tickets selling fast. Members of @MFNcharity, @VWFndn, @TheEFDSS, @3choirs, don’t let this very special occasion slip through your fingers. Book now!
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Vaughan Williams Foundation
@vwfndn
Vaughan Williams wrote his Symphony No. 5 in D major between 1938 and 1943.
It represented a shift away from the dissonance of his Fourth Symphony and a return to the gentler style of the earlier Pastoral Symphony.
The work was an immediate success at its premiere in 1943 👏
BBC Music Magazine
@musicmagazine
In this episode of the All the Right Notes podcast, we look at the phenomenon of Vaughan Williams’s The Lark Ascending – why are we so obsessed with it?
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Vaughan Williams Foundation
@vwfndn
A good example here of what people did before the internet existed – they wrote questions down and shared them via letter! ✉️
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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/49Yo39u
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NMC Recordings
@nmcrecordings
@BBCSO We are delighted to be able to pay tribute to Payne and his close relationship with the @bbcsymphonyorchestra through the release of this new album, ‘Visions and Journeys’.
This album was made possible by those who donated to the Anthony Payne Album Appeal
@RoyalPhilSoc @VWFndn
Vaughan Williams Foundation
@vwfndn
The @BBCPhilharmonic welcomes conductor Andrew Manze for a programme featuring Ralph Vaughan Williams and Ruth Gipps.
Enter the BBC ballot for tickets here by 2pm today👇
https://www.bbc.co.uk/showsandtours/shows/bbc-phil-10may24
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Vaughan Williams Foundation
@vwfndn
“I’m not at all sure that I like it myself now. All I know is that it’s what I wanted to do at the time” – Vaughan Williams on his Symphony No. 4 in F minor.
Its first recording featured the composer himself, in what was his only commercial recording of any of his symphonies.
National Open Youth Orchestra
@thenoyo
Sending thanks to @VWFndn for their support in the creation of “Elements” by Alexandra Hamilton-Ayres debuting at our concerts this year. We are grateful to them for making the performance of this moving and thought-provoking piece a reality.
for tickets!
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Gemma New
@gemmanewmusic
So cool to explore Vaughan Williams’ rarely performed “Antarctic Symphony” with the phenomenal @SeattleSymphony and Chorus, Jennifer Bromagen and @IoanGruffudd, complete with TWO wind machines!
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 Eleanor Farjeon
Letter No.: VWL4438
From R. Vaughan Williams,
The White Gates,
Westcott Road,
Dorking.
30th July, 1947.
Dear Miss Farjeon,
I have been through both your librettos now. I like the “Plane Tree”, but I don’t think it will do for an opera. It merely wants incidental music, as you suggest. The other one is so different from my idea of a story that I cannot altogether get hold of it, so we must wait till the right thing appears. But there is no hurry for, as I told you, I have got enough in my mind to last me about two years.
I am so glad you liked the “P.K.” Those Academy children were really wonderful.
Yours sincerely,
R Vaughan Williams
R. Vaughan Williams.
Encs.
