F-PLUS is committed to working with the next generation of composers, and looks forward to residencies at the Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music, Illinois State University, and University of Texas at Austin during the 2018-2019 season. The ensemble has previously completed residencies at Grand Valley State, Central Michigan, Stony Brook, and Duke Universities.

New York-based violinist KATE DREYFUSS is a versatile performer of classical and contemporary repertoire. She is a core member of the new music ensemble Contemporaneous, which was recently praised by the New York Times for a “ferocious, focused” performance. In 2016, Kate was a featured artist at the Festival Internacional de Música Académica Contemporánea in Cuenca, Ecuador. Kate won third prize at the 2016 Hellam Young Artists Competition in Springfield, MO, and has recently performed with New York’s Nouveau Classical Project and at the Bang on a Can Festival. Kate is a current DMA student at Stony Brook University, where she also completed her Master of Music degree. Kate previously completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in French at Princeton University.

JOSH GRAHAM is a percussionist based in Chicago. He has performed as a soloist and chamber musician throughout the country, and at conferences including the International Computer Music Conference, the Society of Composers Inc. Conference, and the International Clarinet Association “ClarinetFest.” Josh is the program coordinator for the Zafa Collective and regularly performs with pianist Yoshiko Arahata. He has performed with the Aspen Contemporary Ensemble, Ensemble Dal Niente, the Half Stick Duo, and the Listen! Percussion Group. Josh teaches percussion at Triton College and the percussion methods course at Roosevelt University, and is also on faculty at the Music Institute of Chicago. He holds degrees from the University of Michigan and Central Michigan University, and endorses Marimba One Instruments, Vic Firth Sticks and Mallets, and Black Swamp Percussion Instruments.

ANDY HUDSON is a clarinetist whose performances have been hailed as “a treat for the listener” and praised for “an uncommon singularity of purpose, technical virtuosity, youthful vigor and a mature sensitivity.” Andy has performed at conferences of the International Clarinet Association, the International Alliance for Women in Music, and the Music Teachers National Association Conference. Andy is the clarinetist for Latitude 49 and has performed with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on their MusicNOW series. He has also performed with Ensemble Dal Niente, earspace, the Zafa Collective, and 10th & Broadway. In 2008, he won the MTNA National Senior Woodwind Competition. Andy holds degrees from Northwestern University and Columbus State University, and in 2018 joins the faculty at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

ROGER ZARE has been praised for his “enviable grasp of orchestration” (New York Times) and for writing music with “formal clarity and an alluringly mercurial surface.” He was born in Sarasota, FL, and has written for a wide variety of ensembles, from solo instruments to full orchestra. Often inspired by science, mathematics, literature, and mythology, his colorfully descriptive and energetic works have been performed in five continents by such ensembles as the American Composers Orchestra, the Minnesota Orchestra, the Sarasota Orchestra, the Australian-based Trio Anima Mundi, the Donald Sinta Quartet, and the New York Youth Symphony. An award winning composer, Zare has received the ASCAP Nissim Prize, three BMI Student Composer Awards, an ASCAP Morton Gould award, a New York Youth Symphony First Music Commission, the 2008 American Composers Orchestra Underwood Commission, a 2010 Charles Ives Scholarship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Copland House Residency Award, Grand Prize in the inaugural China-US Emerging Composers Competition, and many other honors. An active pianist, Zare performed his chamber work, Geometries, with Cho-Liang Lin, Jian Wang, and Burt Hara at the 2014 Hong Kong International Chamber Music Festival. He has been composer in residence at the Chesapeake Chamber Music Festival, the Salt Bay Chamber Music Festival, the Chamber Music Festival of Lexington and currently serves with the SONAR new music ensemble. Zare holds a DMA (’12) from the University of Michigan, where he studied with Michael Daugherty, Paul Schoenfield, Bright Sheng, and Kristin Kuster. He holds degrees from the Peabody Conservatory (MM ’09) and the University of Southern California (BM ’07), and his previous teachers include Christopher Theofanidis, Derek Bermel, David Smooke, Donald Crockett, Tamar Diesendruck, Fredrick Lesemann, and Morten Lauridsen. Zare currently serves as instructional assistant professor of composition and theory at Illinois State University.