"The orchestra played with great dramatic punch throughout... while the brass covered themselves in glory from top to bottom" - Limelight on the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Simone Young, performing Britten and Vaughan Williams.
We know it's Monday, but let's look forward to the weekend!
On Saturday in Beckenham, the Bromley Symphony Orchestra presents: "Vaughan Williams’ visionary 9th offset by Mendelssohn’s youthfully glowing violin concerto and Gershwin’s irresistibly jazzy ‘American in Paris’."
Supported by the VWF 👏
📻 A weekend listen
Michael Berkeley's guest on BBC Radio 3's Private Passions is the stage and screen actor Paul Chahidi, whose musical picks include Beethoven, Vaughan Williams, Persian folk music and Sondheim.
The Vaughan Williams Foundation has three deadlines annually for general funding.
Applications are now open - the next deadline (for work taking place from August 2026 onward) is Friday, May 1.
💻 More details via our website
🎶 Get to know the man and his music
✒️ RVW’s wide-ranging correspondence paints an intriguing portrait of the man and provides fascinating insights into his major preoccupations: musical, personal and political
💻 Find the searchable database of letters via our website
Recorded in 1983, baritone Sir Thomas Allen performs 'The Vagabond', the first of nine songs in Ralph Vaughan Williams' song cycle, 'Songs of Travel'. With the Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sir Simon Rattle.
🎧 Listen here 👇
📣 Applications are now OPEN for the Cheltenham Festival Composer Academy 🎼
This opportunity offers an intensive 5 days (July 6 - 10) of development for composers in the early stages of their career. It includes workshops, recording, talks from industry professionals and networking.
Details here 👇
Ralph Vaughan Williams set the words of the full poem by Ursula Vaughan Williams, Song for a Spring Festival, for a mixed chorus to perform at the Leith Hill Musical Festival 🌿
On March 12, the London Chorus and New London Orchestra present a concert at Holy Trinity on Sloane Square, of the music of Ralph Vaughan Williams, a Chelsea resident for 24 years.
Details here 👇
Vaughan Williams Scholarships of up to £8K each are open to talented applicants intending to make composition their professional career.
Scholarships are awarded towards the costs of study of a taught Master's course or PhD in composition at UK universities or conservatoires.
On March 29, the Campaign to Protect Rural England will host A Concert for the Countryside in Bristol.
The event will feature music by Vaughan Williams, Elgar, Coleridge-Taylor and others with the Bristol Youth Orchestra at the Bristol Beacon.
"The Lark Ascending made the violin become both the bird's song and its flight, being, rather than illustrating, the poem from which the title was taken" - Ursula Vaughan Williams on her husband's much-loved composition.
"Opening with a breathless whisper, it flutters and soars before vanishing into a realm of spiritual tranquillity."
- Clive Paget for The Guardian, on violinist Pekka Kuusisto's new recording of RVW's The Lark Ascending,
The track is included on the new 5⭐ reviewed Willows album.
Vaughan Williams states his commitment to preserving folk music 🎶
A fortune indeed! 💷
We agree - music has the power to reach across differences, and bring listeners together 🎶
Jade Cuttle explores Vaughan Williams’ fenland legacy on BBC Radio 3
Jade Cuttle, a PhD student at the Faculty, recently appeared on BBC Radio 3’s Sunday Feature. In the programme, she retraced the fenland journeys of composer Ralph...
Michael Finnissy's bold and ambitious Complete Works album spans almost 60 years of his career. It represents the enormous contribution to the repertoire of the instrument made by one of Britain’s most significant composers.
Supported by the VWF, due for release March 13, 2026 👏
“Riders to the Sea is a beautiful and tragic work by Ralph Vaughan Williams, based on the play of the same name by John Millington Synge" - conductor Joanna Drimatis.
Sydney-based Gente, gente! Productions is set to launch with a bold double bill. More here 👇
Explore a fabulous range of photographs relating to the life of Ralph Vaughan Williams, via our website 💻
Concerto in F Minor for Bass Tuba and Orchestra - Ralph Vaughan Williams.
🎧 Listen to this 2013 recording with John Fletcher, tuba, and the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Andre Previn 👇
We hope you have the opportunity to enjoy some music this weekend! 🎶
"A sound world where we experience real love in its many forms - philosophical, personal, painful, and transcendent"
Violinist Esther Yoo on her new album Love Symposium, featuring a selection of works exploring facets of love, including Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending.
To mark the 100th anniversary of the birth of Michael Kennedy, former chair of the Vaughan Williams Charitable Trust, the Ralph Vaughan Williams Society is sharing interviews examining Kennedy's life and work.
Watch here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q42e...
Today marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of music critic and writer Michael Kennedy (1926–2014), an important champion of Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Kennedy was a close friend and leading authority on the composer, writing many influential books detailing his life and music.
As a student, RVW would travel into the fens, ice skating to Ely Cathedral and collecting local folk songs. In this BBC Radio 3 programme, poet and nature writer Jade Cuttle retraces his footsteps.
🎧 Listen here:
The Vaughan Williams Foundation funds the work of composers and projects relating to the life and work of Ralph and Ursula Vaughan Williams.
We have 3 deadlines annually for general funding - the next is in the spring 🌷
Check our website for more details 💻
The English Music Festival showcases the richness and heritage of English music.
This May it comes to Devon, with highlights including the London Mozart Players performing works by Gerald Finzi and Thomas Linley, and chamber and choral music by Elgar, Holst, Britten and Vaughan Williams.
The Vaughan Williams Foundation has various funding opportunities available - find out more via our website 💻
Start your week with RVW's Tallis Fantasia played here by the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Bryden Thomson.
Tallis Fantasia is based on a tune by the 16th-century English composer Thomas Tallis, which RVW encountered while editing the English Hymnal.
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