You’ll be seeing a lot more of Time for Three in Indianapolis during the next few years.

This unusual trio, co-founded by Zach De Pue, concertmaster of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra, consists of two violins and a double bass, and it embraces a wide variety of styles suitable for acoustic string instruments.

De Pue and his colleagues — violinist Nicolas Kendall and bassist Ranaan Meyer — have signed an agreement with the ISO to be its first ensemble-in-residence. They will appear in schools and other public places in town to bridge the gap between the average music lover and the classical scene. Students at Broad Ripple and Perry Meridian high schools will be a special focus during the residency’s first year.

Having met as students at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, each of the three musicians brought a separate subspecialty to the group they formed.

DePue is an Appalachian fiddler, Kendall has cultivated hip-hop through a trashcan-drumming group he has on the side, and Meyer is familiar with jazz.

The local introduction to Time for Three in its new role will come next week, when the trio will play Jennifer Higdon’s “Concerto 4-3” with the ISO, led by guest conductor Michael Stern.

The work was premiered in January 2008 by the Philadelphia Orchestra as a co-commission with the Pittsburgh and Wheeling (W.Va.) symphony orchestras. (De Pue played in the Philadelphia Orchestra’s violin section for several years before landing the concertmaster job here in 2007.) It’s also been heard in Baltimore, Phoenix and Fort Worth and at the Ravinia Festival, the Chicago Symphony’s summer home.

The composer, Jennifer Higdon, is one of the most performed contemporary composers in the country. The ISO played the premiere of her Violin Concerto, written for Hilary Hahn, last February.

Higdon said then that she has known De Pue since he was about 6, having come to the campus of Bowling Green (Ohio) State University — where De Pue’s father, Wallace De Pue, was on the music faculty — as a flute major.

“Her first composition teacher was my father,” DePue recalled. “My dad always said you didn’t teach her, you just tried to guide all her energy and advise her.”

To write for Time for Three, Higdon listened to the kind of music it plays, which is hard to define, though “Americana roots music” gets at it for some people. The trio shared with her the sound effects and special techniques it has evolved over the nine years it’s been together.

“The piece celebrates Texas-style fiddling somewhat,” De Pue said. “You never lose her as classical composer — her harmony and so on. So it doesn’t sound like a hokey fiddle tune; it’s more about ‘How do I take this to the next step?’ She utilizes those elements well; the piece has a firm architecture.”