Off the Hook Arts presents:

An Event of Note
A Benefit Concert and Auction for Music Education

When and where:
Sunday, November 9th, 2025 @ 2:30pm
Ed Carrol Motors Showroom; 3003 S College Ave, Fort Collins, CO 80525

Join us for An Event of Note, a soul-stirring celebration of music, community, and generosity — all in support of Off the Hook Arts' mission to provide free and low-cost music education for low-income students.

What to Expect:

2:30pm | Doors Open
Begin your afternoon by perusing a curated selection of silent auction items while enjoying a glass of wine and some tasty appetizers.

Live Music Performances
Be moved by the powerful, folk vocals of Rhonda Merrick, the soulful songstress at the heart of Roots Le Roux, and jazz bassist/composer Jo Asker, and Fort Collins favorite, pianist John Magnie. Rhonda’s emotionally rich music blends Acoustic, Jazz, Folk, Gospel, Rhythm, and Soul with a back-up orchestra of our gifted Chamber Music Academy students and faculty.

Every dollar raised fuels Off the Hook Arts’ programs—bringing the power of music into the lives of young people who need it most.

Our Event of Note Gala will include a community food drive to support local families facing food insecurity. Bring a nonperishable food item to the gala and help us fight hunger in our most vulnerable members of Fort Collins.

Don’t miss this unforgettable afternoon of heart, harmony, and hope.

Artist Bio: Rhonda is a singer-songwriter from New Orleans, Louisiana who grew up poor but also in poverty of opportunity. Joined the United States Marine Corps to support her siblings. Eventually, by using skills learned in her school choirs and other musical groups, she competed and won a Performance Voice scholarship at San Diego State University. She studied with Mary MacKenzie for four years, before moving to upstate New York just prior to graduation. Three years later, she moved to England and completed a Bachelor's degree. During her 15 years in England, she toured across different parts of Europe with her band Rhonda and The Great Unknown. She worked as a music teacher, managed festivals and concerts and a range of community-based education programs. Upon returning to America in 2021, she briefly stayed with a relative in Colorado, then traveled to her hometown in Louisiana to work as an English teacher for a couple of years. While she lived in Louisiana, she wrote songs that would eventually be part of an album called Homecoming and Home Truths. She spent time facing remnants of a difficult past, through the eyes of an adult who has traveled to other places in the world, learned other languages and lived in other cultures. She was able to spend time with Louis, her only brother, and Amanda, her baby sister; before both siblings passed away in 2023 within a few months of each other. She's a person who is rebuilding herself and future beneath the ashes of the burned out person she used to be. Her return to Colorado was filled with a different kind of pain and loss alongside new and lasting friendships, access to resources to create things and finally... finally peace of mind. She connected with like-minded musicians at the Music District and they formed a band called Roots Le Roux. The band plays roots music in all of its forms whether Acoustic, Jazz, Folk, Gospel mixed with Rhythm and Soul. Her songs are filled with joy, grief, regret, fury, rage, humor, anxiety and a calm; acceptance of things that can't be undone. Some of her lyrics will hurt because they come from the kind of lived experiences most of us can relate to. The band, formed in May 2025, is rehearsing, recording and slowly releasing the Homecoming and Home Truths album one song at a time.

Group name: Roots Le Roux

Chamber Music Academy

Contact the host of An Event of Note Gala

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