Lilac 94 at Southminster Presbyterian Church

Christina Brier and Kathryn Sloat of Lilac 94 are traveling to the Midwest to share an oddity: two harps, classical instruments, playing decidedly non­classical music. All of the pieces they will perform on the concert were written in the last fifteen years, several of them written specifically for Lilac 94. Last summer Christina and Kate spent two weeks at the Fresh Inc Festival in Wisconsin, where they worked with young composers on new music for their harp duo. One of these new pieces includes “The Juniper Tree” by Rebecca Larkin, which depicts a fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm. Other pieces that will be featured on the program include a double harp cadenza, dance music for two harps, and a collaboration with Chicago flutist Jenni Shanahan, whom they also met and worked with at the Fresh Inc Festival.

The centerpiece of the show will be a set of new works written for them by composers Daniel Morel and Bret Bohman. Each of these pieces portrays a different setting in the Midwest, including Kansas City (Daniel Morel’s “KC Blue”), Tiffin, Ohio (Bret Bohman’s “Foglifter”), and Ann Arbor, Michigan (Bret Bohman’s “Swirl”). This new music was the inspiration for Lilac 94’s journey through the Midwest. Christina and Kate thought it would interesting to play Bret and Daniel’s music in their places of origin, and fun for audiences to hear their area of the country depicted as harp music.