Fred Hoeptner: Ragtime’s Renaissance Man

“My sitting next to you and your wife at the concert in Sedalia was truly serendipitous,” Fred Hoeptner wrote me after we met for the first time a few years ago. One of the most delightful aspects of being in the ragtime community, beyond the music, is meeting and knowing the remarkable people that make up the group. A Renaissance man is defined as a person with many talents or areas of knowledge. Knowing Fred Hoeptner and researching his career has given me an enormous appreciation for a man who exemplifies the definition. His variety of diverse interests and talents are concealed by his quiet humility and he can easily be mistaken simply for a congenial conversationalist and pleasant concert companion. That is until his conversation betrays the depth of his knowledge, experiences, and talents. Fred’s name is undoubtedly familiar to ragtime performers and aficionados from the many reviews of ragtime festivals and events he has graciously written for society newsletters and on-line recaps. He has met so many people over the years at these events and has accumulated many, many friends. Those who venture beyond the Classic Ragtime Era standards have also come to appreciate Fred’s talent for syncopated composition. His lyrically beautiful and often complex pieces stand out in a concert program or in an informal after-hours play-off. Many of his compositions are o