Commissioned by the University of Illinois Summer Youth Music Festival in 1967, Ensemble Etudes is written for woodwind quintet and string quartet together, or either, separately. Upon invitation to see the Festival and write a piece, Rhodes encountered exceedingly talented high school wind and string students, which led him to write this work. Designed to have three possible part combinations – Rhodes only work in this fashion – the piece has three different lives within it. It will be sonorally different if played as a nonet, just a woodwind quintet, or just a string quartet.