Fenwick has a round, open face that seems perpetually on the verge of announcing the next number in a dance. He takes up more room than his height suggests: elbows, baton, and broad gestures claim a generous circle, and he only notices when someone has to sidestep him. His hands are short-fingered and work-worn, with hard pads at the fingertips from years of baton drills and instrument handling. He moves in crisp little starts, planting his feet as if the floor is a stage that might shift under the orchestra. The unexpected detail is that he keeps a tiny folding paper theatre tucked in his coat and carefully repairs its painted figures between rehearsals.

Fenwick is effusively welcoming when a room needs courage, but privately exacting about preparation and timing. He loves spontaneous music yet hates an improvised safety plan. In a crisis, his cheerful manner hardens into clipped, practical commands; once danger passes, he tries to make everyone laugh before anyone can ask how frightened he was.

Fenwick grew up among traveling players, learning to keep a beat on wagon rails before he could read a score. At seventeen, he became assistant conductor to an aging human maestro, Bram Kett, who taught him that a bandleader's job was not to make every player sound alike but to hear what each one could do. During a disastrous midsummer performance in a crowded riverside hall, a rigging failure sent a lighting frame crashing into the audience. Fenwick abandoned the score and used a sharp, improvised rhythm to guide musicians and panicked guests through a service exit. Several lives were saved, but the hall's owner blamed the troupe and kept their wages. Fenwick's faith in grand institutions never recovered. He now leads a small ensemble that plays public squares, private feasts, and, when necessary, distraction music for people making an escape. He still exchanges letters with Bram, who has grown frail and wants Fenwick to come home. His violinist, Tilda Rusk, is his closest friend and fiercest critic; she thinks he takes every danger onto himself to prove the old rescue was not luck. Fenwick's current trouble is a broken contract with a wealthy patron who expects his band to perform at a politically dangerous gathering.