Strings Attached and Fred Draper

Strings Attached

Rendezvous Arts kicks off Season 7 with an audience favorite—only this time, we’re adding strings!

Our beloved Woodwind Octet returns, expanded into our biggest ensemble yet. Eleven musicians bring even more color, warmth, and energy to the stage in a program that pairs old favorites with something completely new.

And we mean completely new.

Local composer Scott Stevenson is writing a piece especially for this occasion and this ensemble. nice, fresh will receive its world premiere at these performances, giving Rendezvous audiences the chance to hear a brand-new work created specifically for the musicians onstage.

The program also takes a playful turn with Jonathan Dove’s Figures in the Garden, a serenade for wind octet inspired by music from Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro, along with intimate performances featuring horn trio and cello and bass duo.

Then comes a piece we’ve dreamed of bringing to Rendezvous for years: Antonín Dvořák’s Serenade for Winds in D Minor, Op. 44. Warm, lyrical, joyful, and bursting with personality, it’s the perfect showcase for this expanded ensemble and the perfect way to launch a new season.

A world premiere. Eleven musicians. Mozart reimagined. Dvořák at his most irresistible.

Strings attached? Absolutely.

Fred Draper

Painter

Adding another dimension to the program is featured visual artist Fred Draper, whose work invites us to look more closely at the world around us.

A perceptual artist drawn to the landscape and natural world, Fred works across pastel, drypoint printmaking, drawing, and painting. His work is rooted in careful observation, exploring how the same subject can reveal something entirely different through a change in medium, material, or point of view.

Fred holds a BFA with a concentration in painting from Wright State University, and his work has been exhibited in galleries across the country.

It’s a perfect fit for a program all about hearing familiar sounds in new ways.