Cheltenham Christian Arts Festival
Back in 2016, here in the Festival town of Cheltenham, my friend Nikki and I launched the first Cheltenham Christian Arts Festival. After the departure of Greenbelt from the town and the prevailing media antipathy to faith at the time, we felt an urge to celebrate Christian artistic expression in all its creative forms. So we produced a two-week programme packed with musical performances, dance, theatre, art exhibitions, workshops, comedy etc using schools, libraries, churches, lecture theatres, galleries and community centres around the town,
Our first event which opened the 2016 Festival was The Big Sing in Cheltenham Town Hall where, accompanied by a 35 piece orchestra, a community choir of 120 led an evening of traditional and contemporary hymns and songs. We selected David Ogden FRSCM as our Musical Director. Audience members reported having no voice left the following morning and Rt Rev Rachel Treweek, Bishop of Gloucester said, “It was a joy and delight to be part of the Big Sing!”. A CD album was produced from recordings made live at the event. BBC Songs of Praise then approached us to record a programme with them that September, including local schools and community youth choirs.
But the Big Sing required a large budget, and this is where the Pratt Green Trust came to the rescue. We had been looking through a Directory of Grant Funders in the Cheltenham Library and came across this Trust. We had a small deficit from the event which the Trust kindly met. But in order to offer another Big Sing for 2017 we really needed financial support. Andrew Pratt responded encouragingly to our further request and the Trust generously assisted with the costs of running our second wonderful event e.g. printing costs for the choir song books, screen hire for lyrics etc. Thus we were able to extend the community choir to local secondary schools – it was a joy to see 11yr olds singing alongside those in their 80s and every age in between!
The Pratt Green Trust also partnered with our Festival in 2019 suggesting we offer Hymn-Writing Workshops as part of our creative programme. Again with great generosity of spirit, Andrew Pratt and Janet Wootton led two workshops in Cheltenham with all costs covered by the Trust.
Cheltenham Christian Arts Festival continues to ignite musical creativity. This year our GOSPEL23 Festival held a national gospel song-writing competition. The winning entry from hopefuls around the UK was a catchy worship song called Higher and was performed on the stage at Cheltenham Town Hall on 23 April 2023 by BBC Gospel Choir of the Year 2023, EAGA Gospel Choir.
An unexpected benefit of our partnership with the Trust has been the wealth of new hymnody I encountered through HymnQuest and Andrew’s own creations. As worship leader in my Cheltenham church I have enjoyed introducing our congregation to hymns he has written speaking directly to our contemporary culture and issues, eg, When the Weeping of the Nations (2016) for Remembrance Sunday.
Pratt Green funding supported us to offer community hymn-singing (and writing) events to hundreds of people – but also the partnership has been affirming and sustaining to us during those human moments of nerves and doubt! Thank you for all you have done to encourage us and our vision of, through the arts, sharing with everyone the sheer fulness of joy to be had in relationship with God.