The
Pratt Green Trust is a charity whose principal aim is to further the cause of
hymnody. It was set up in 1984 by the Methodist hymn writer Fred Pratt Green,
principally as a means of deploying the royalty income from his hymns for the
benefit of authors, composers and users of hymnody.
To mark the 25th anniversary of its founding the Trust held a celebratory event in Coventry Cathedral in March 2009 at which the keynote speaker was Bishop Timothy Dudley-Smith, OBE
for pictures and an account of the day click here
for Timothy Dudley-Smith's key-note address click here
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The objects of the Pratt Green Trust are:
1.
to advance public education in the field of church music and other music suitable
for religious purposes and in the field of hymnody;
2.
to provide prizes, scholarships, bursaries and other grants for church musicians
and musicians concerned with the composition and rendering of religious music
and for hymn writers;
3.
to make donations to otherwise further the objects of other charities carrying
on in whole or in part objects similar to the objects set out above.
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The
Trust gives regular grants to the Methodist Church Music Society and the Hymn
Society of Great Britain and Ireland, as well as providing grant aid to other
organisations concerned with the use of hymns
and worship songs in Christian worship. Grants are available to assist individual
students of hymnody and to help with training days for hymn writers. The Trust
is also able to assist overseas hymnbook compilers, and is pleased to have made
possible the publication of the first Roman Catholic Hymn Book in Latvian as well as hymnals in Antigua, Brazil and the Cameroon. Its
funds support the Pratt Green Collection in the Library of the University of Durham,
where Fred Pratt Green's remarkable scrapbooks are held.
The
Trustees are anxious to follow the wishes of Fred Pratt Green that they should
concentrate on projects that would otherwise be unlikely to be fulfilled, and
that they should spend funds rather than hoard them for undefined future needs.
A major project that fulfils both these conditions is the HymnQuest CD-ROM,
a database of over 22,000 hymns and songs that was first published in May 2000
and has been updated and improved in each succeeding year. In 2001 the Trust also
produced a memorial volume by Bernard Braley entitled Serving God and God's
Creatures to celebrate the life and work of its founder, Fred Pratt Green. |  |
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