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In his later years, William Walton, who didn’t come from a wealthy background, expressed his desire to help young musicians, just as his patrons had helped him.
To honor his wishes, the William Walton La Mortella Trust provides grants for a range of music-related projects, including artistic works, educational programs, concerts, and tours.
• Individual artists
• Registered non-profit organizations
• Educational institutions
• Cultural and arts organizations
• Community-based music initiatives
• Touring companies and ensembles
• Scholars and researchers
All applicants must submit grant applications between February 1 and October 31 of the preceding year. Applications received after this deadline will not be considered. The review and assessment process takes place in November, December, and January, and grant funds are distributed after January 31 of the following year.
All applicants must follow the same application process and request a specific amount. Applications for unspecified sums will not be considered.
Each application should include:
• Relevant professional documentation, such as relevant biographical information on the artist, organization, and any project participants, as well as a concise overview of previous work, research, performances, exhibitions, or touring experience.
• A clear description of the proposed project and its background, along with an outline of its intended audience and outreach strategy.
• Applicants must provide financial information in sufficient detail to support the request, including a comprehensive breakdown of projected expenses, unless the application is solely for a working grant.
• Whenever possible, applicants should provide supporting artistic materials, such as audio or video links.
For projects involving educational programs, concerts, or tours, further details are required.
In this case, applicants should in fact provide us with:
• A more comprehensive project description,
• A detailed timeline
• A touring itinerary specifying venues and locations. Supporting correspondence from venues, presenters, or project partners should also be included where available.
Upon receipt of the grant, the Trustees require an official letter of acknowledgment.
In 2026, we celebrate the centenary of Lady Susana Walton: the visionary behind one of Italy's most famous Mediterranean gardens, La Mortella, which continues to uphold her legacy, welcoming over 90,000 visitors annually. Born in 1926 in Argentina, Lady Walton married British composer William Walton in 1948 and made Ischia their home.
With landscape architect Russell Page, she created a unique garden that reflected her artistic sensitivity and love of nature and plants. After William's death, Lady Walton dedicated herself to transforming La Mortella into a cultural centre focused on music and honoring her husband's legacy.
To commemorate this special anniversary, the Trust has planned a year-long program of events across Italy and the UK to celebrate the life and cultural impact of this remarkable woman.
The centenary programme will start on Saturday, 28 March at 3:00 PM at La Mortella Gardens with the inaugural event “Lady Walton 100,” organised in collaboration with the Garden Club of Ischia.
The programme includes the opening of the exhibition “The Intuition of Love,” dedicated to Lady Walton, and a conference titled “Susana and Her Garden: The Story of an Extraordinary Life”.
A series of conferences on Lady Walton’s legacy, curated by the Trust's President Alessandra Vinciguerra, will be held across Italy and abroad. These events will be hosted in prestigious venues, including museums, historic residences, botanical gardens, and cultural festivals dedicated to landscape and heritage.
The Foundation’s Kepos Project, a programme of cultural lectures, will focus on the historical evolution of gardens, offering a wide-ranging exploration of garden styles and themes, while also discussing music history.
Within the Giardini La Mortella, the site-specific installation by M. Catuogno, L’Intuizione dell’Amore, guides visitors on a journey to discover the garden’s sources of inspiration. Plaques set into the rocks, accompanied by myrtle plants (mortella in the local dialect), present quotations by Lady Walton and her key influences, evoking the ideas that gave rise to the landscape.
Music remains the backbone of the anniversary’s celebrations at La Mortella:
A major concert will take place in Rome on 8 November at Teatro Palladium, featuring Orchestra Roma Tre in collaboration with the Accademia Filarmonica Romana, with music by William Walton and the suite Lady Walton’s Garden by R. Molinelli.
A new production of Façade will also be staged in Naples in collaboration with Associazione Scarlatti.
On 21 August (nearing Lady Walton’s birthday) a tango evening will be hosted in Ischia, celebrating Walton’s Argentine heritage with an open milonga.
Celebrations will also take place across the UK:
William Walton expressed a desire to support young musicians, just as he himself had been supported in his youth by numerous patrons. Following his death, Lady Walton established the William Walton Trust in 1984—later renamed the William Walton La Mortella Trust—a charity dedicated to promoting musical education, supporting talented musicians, disseminating Walton’s music worldwide, and making his lesser-known works more accessible to the general public.
Since 1990, the Trust has been working with its Italian counterpart, the Fondazione Walton, also established by Lady Walton. The Trust sponsored the complete recording of Walton's works, completed in 1995, and promoted the complete publication of Walton's entire musical output in collaboration with Oxford University Press, the Walton Edition. In the United Kingdom, the Trust collaborates with several prestigious institutions, orchestras, musical ensembles, and music schools, and provides scholarships and grants in the music field.
In Italy, in the beautiful setting of the Giardini la Mortella, Walton's beloved Italian estate on the island of Ischia, the Trust and the Foundation collaborate closely to carry on Lady Walton's legacy through the management of the property, which includes the renowned Garden, the Museum, and the Archive. The Walton Archive, opened in 1990, provides valuable resources for scholars and enthusiasts, while the Museum displays memorabilia and objects related to William and Lady Walton. Here, concerts and masterclasses for music students and young musicians aged 18 to 32 are held. The musicians come from the best music schools in Italy and abroad, to participate in the chamber music season curated by Lina Tufano and the Festival delle Orchestre Giovanili, and the symphonic music season at the Teatro Greco, curated by Caroline Howard. The Trust also supports publications on Walton and engages in music education projects with schools.
The Walton Centenary celebrations in 2002 showcased the significance of Walton's work through various performances and events, underscoring the Trust's continued dedication to education and engagement with the musical community. In 2026, the Trust will mark the centenary of the birth of Susana, Lady Walton, with special events celebrating her immeasurable work at La Mortella Gardens and her role in keeping her husband's legacy alive.
William Walton's corpus of works includes several pieces that enjoyed significant circulation at the time of their composition and are now firmly established in the historical-musical repertoire.
William Walton wrote Façade as the instrumental accompaniment to the poems of the same name by his patron and friend Edith Sitwell. It was first performed privately at the Sitwell family’s London home in 1922, and the full score was published in 1951.
The biblical cantata Belshazzar's Feast is centred on the story of the lavish banquet held by the Babylonian king Belshazzar. Commissioned by the BBC in 1929, it marked Walton’s rise as a leading figure in British music. The libretto, by Osbert Sitwell, draws extensively from the Bible. The work features dissonant harmonies, jazzy cross-rhythms, and echoes of the English oratorio tradition of the 18th and 19th centuries.
Full of pomp and majesty, Crown Imperial is an orchestral march composed for the coronation of King George VI. First performed at Westminster Abbey on coronation day in 1937, it stands as a grand ceremonial work in the tradition of Edward Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance marches.
William Walton’s iconic First Symphony in B-flat minor premiered in 1935, when the composer was in his early thirties, making a powerful impact. The work reveals influences of Sibelius and Beethoven, yet remains unmistakably Waltonian: volcanic, powerful, and above all, timeless.