Ralph Vaughan Williams, composer

Born: October 12, 1872 in the village of Down Ampney, Gloucestershire

Died: August 26, 1958; his ashes are interred in Westminster Abbey

Education: Trinity College, Cambridge; student of British composers Stanford and Parry at the Royal College of Music; student of Max Bruch in Berlin and Maurice Ravel in Paris

Notable work: at the turn of the 20th century, one of the first composers to travel to the British countryside to collect and notate folk songs and carols from regional singers; he maintained a lifelong friendship with Gustav Holst, another composer influenced by folk music

Other accomplishments: musical editor of The English Hymnal and The Oxford Book of Carols; served in the Field Ambulance Service in Flanders during WWI; professor of composition at the Royal College of Music in London; conducted and led the Leith Hill Music Festival; in 1935 he received the prestigious Order of Merit (after previously declining a knighthood)