Ralph Vaughan Williams concerts at Leith Hill
Leith Hill Place is celebrating the upcoming 143rd birthday of Surrey composer Ralph Vaughan Williams with a set of summer concerts, marking a new partnership between the National Trust and Royal College of Music
Ralph Vaughan Williams is rightly renowned among composers, his music acclaimed as a having a quintessentially English character. Perhaps his most famous work, The Lark Ascending, was inspired by (and would eclipse) the poem of the same name. Begun before the outbreak of the First World War, it would not be completed until Vaughan Williams had returned from active service.
Leith Hill Place was his childhood home, gifted to the National Trust in 1944. This beautiful house was where he took his first musical steps, where his great-uncle Charles Darwin conducted some of his early experiments, where the countryside can be seen for miles around from atop the second-highest point in south-east England.
This year, the house is to host Ralph Vaughan Williams as Teacher, four tribute concerts marking a new partnership between the National Trust and the Royal College of Music. Young musicians specially chosen by the RCM for professional development will perform in the very drawing room where Vaughan Williams once practiced.
You can find details of the concerts on the Leith Hill website
