Ebenezer Prout (1 March 1835 – 5 December 1909) was an English musical theorist, writer, music teacher and composer, whose instruction, afterwards embodied in a series of standard works still used today, underpinned the work of many British classical musicians of succeeding generations.

Prout was born in Oundle on 1 March 1835. His father was a clergyman and he was the nephew of the water-colour painter Samuel Prout. His father taught him music and he studied piano under Charles Salaman, but was otherwise self-taught. He attended the University of London intending a career as a scholar, but chose to follow one in music through his love of it.

From 1861 to 1873 he was Organist of the Union Chapel, Islington. From 1861 to 1885 he was Professor of the Piano at the Crystal Palace School of Art. He was awarded first prizes for a string quartet (1862) and a pianoforte quartet (1865) by the Society of British Musicians. Between 1871 and 1874 he was Editor (the first) of the Monthly Musical Record, and between 1874 and 1879 music critic for the Academy. In 1863 he was one of the first twenty-one members of the Royal College of Organists.

From 1876 to 1882 Prout taught on the faculty of the National Training School of Music. In 1879 he was appointed Professor of Harmony and Composition at the Royal Academy of Music in London, and became music critic of the Athenaeum. In 1884 he became a professor at the Guildhall School of Music, London. In 1894 he was appointed Professor of Music at Trinity College Dublin, being awarded an honorary Mus.Doc. the following year. During this period he not only trained his students but delivered memorable public lecture series, notably one on the Bach cantatas illustrated by singers he had trained.

Also to this period belong his principal theoretical works, many of which became standard text books and were translated into multiple languages. In 1877 he contributed a text on instrumentation to Novello's series of music primers. Then came a series of treatises, including Harmony, its Theory and Practice (1889), which reached a twenty-fourth edition, Counterpoint, Strict and Free (1890), which ran to nine editions, Fugue (1891), and The Orchestra (1898-9, two volumes).

Prout produced editions of many of the classics, not least the Handel oratorios. He was directly connected with the rediscovery of the original wind parts for Messiah, from which new full and vocal scores were introduced by him to the Royal Society of Musicians in 1902. As an editor, Prout reflected the practices of his own time in that he felt justified in replacing Handel's phrasing and expression marks with his own preferences. In this respect Prout differed from his contemporary Friedrich Chrysander, who was the first to produce an edition attempting to convey the composer's own intentions.

Prout is also remembered for fitting whimsical words to the main subjects of J. S. Bach's fugues, and in particular all of the fugues from Bach's 48 Preludes and Fugues.

For a period, Prout was regarded as one of the most promising English composers. He produced four symphonies between 1867 and 1886, and a series of dramatic cantatas, commissions from the Birmingham, Norwich and Bristol Festivals. Other choral works were written for his local choir, the Hackney Choral Association, and given under the composer's direction at prominent venues in London. Among several performances at the Crystal Palace, London, the Organ Concerto in E minor was performed by John Stainer in 1871. He also composed orchestral overtures, chamber music (including two string quartets and two piano quartets) and instrumental sonatas, such as the Clarinet Sonata in D (1882). The Concertante Duet in A major for piano and harmonium, written in 1872 and published by Augener in 1900, achieved particular popularity.