[2] The Committee for the Promotion of New Music was a membership organization which sought to find the best new composers and to help support their careers, especially in the UK.
[6] Ralph Vaughan Williams agreed to become president with the proviso that it "avoid all cliques [and] give a welcome to all good work in whatever style or school".
[3] Arthur Bliss was appointed as vice-president, and Benjamin Britten and Michael Tippett served on the Committee.
Its initial activities were subsidized by the wartime Council for the Encouragement of Music and the Arts and by private donations from Vaughan Williams and Bliss among others, and remained the basis for much of its subsequent work: "recommended lists" of works were drawn up, which resulted in increased broadcasting by the BBC and in several recordings, issued in the 1940s on 78rpm discs by Decca.
[3][4] By October 1951, a draft amended Constitution had been prepared, and on 27 May 1952 the Society for the Promotion of New Music met for its inaugural meeting.