Almost Classical, a trio group comprised of Biola freshmen and sisters Lisa Carter and Emy Carter and Paris Wilson — a friend from their home in Orcas Island, Wash. — recently released a Christmas CD titled Almost Classical Christmas. Each track on the CD features the group’s original arrangements of popular Christmas songs.


“I'm really excited about our Christmas CD, because it was so fun to arrange and really interesting to record,” said Lisa. “It has newer tracks like our arrangements of Pentatonix’s ‘That's Christmas To Me’ … and [the traditional] ‘Carol of the Bells.’”


The CD, the first where the group sings, features Lisa playing piano and the Celtic harp and Emy and Paris playing violin. All three musicians are classically trained and both Lisa and Emy began playing music at the age of four. The three talented musicians work well together because of their ability to improvise and create unique arrangements from popular music.


Almost Classical began “as a rock/pop band with several other members, and it was called Almost Canadian,” said Lisa. “But for one performance, we all switched to classical instruments, and called that version of the band Almost Classical. Then some of the Canadian members actually moved to Canada, so three of us were left — Paris, Emy, and myself, and we kept the name.”


Since then, the trio is sought after in their home state to play at people’s weddings and events. They have played at Washington State’s Evergreen State Fair and Martin Lund’s One World Music Festival — a two-day summer festival on Orcas Island of world–class artists from the Northwest and beyond. The group has also received "Superior” ratings at Northwest Washington music contests and in 2014 won Orcas Has Talent.


You can purchase the CD on their website, like and share their Facebook page and follow them on YouTube.