But, for the people behind the magic like musical director Vasile Sirli, the excitement of a new event like Mickey’s Magical Party is about more than just dusting off the classics; It’s about giving a new spin, a new soul, a new personality to the old favourites — not to mention creating some brand new music in the process.

For this entirely new year-long celebration, Vasile Sirli and his team joined the challenge to launch a record five new entertainment productions on the same day, four of which Vasile would work closely on. Jérémie Noyer joined the maestro of the magic to discover the unique European flair behind the party and much more…

To yourself, as the musical director of Disneyland Paris, what is the spirit of Mickey’s Magical Party?

Vasile Sirli: When I started working on the project, I wondered about the way to convey a “party” spirit to guests coming from all over Europe with a different conception of that. Some people associate party with Latino music, others to pop music and others to rock.

Moreover, it’s not only about cultural differences, but also about differences of generation. Which made that project really challenging and exciting: how to touch all these different audiences? How to give all of them the feeling to experience an event and an environment really devoted to party? From then on, I had to take into account the way Mickey’s Magical Party is celebrated all over the resort, from It’s Party Time… with Mickey and Friends in front of Le Château de la Belle au Bois Dormant, to It’s Dance Time… in Discoveryland, along with our orchestras and other shows introduced during previous seasons.

That’s the reason why we chose to give each event its own voice, but at the same time, to create common features between them. Musically speaking, this can heard through the different versions of the same Disney themes in different shows. For example, we hear Scott Erickson’s song, Mickey’s Magical Party Time in It’s Party Time… with Mickey and Friends, but also in Discoveryland and on Main Street, using different arrangements. And it’s the same for the classic Disney themes.

How did you arrange the classic Disney themes through the spirit of Mickey’s Magical Party?

Generally speaking, all the arrangements sound more contemporary than the original ones. For example, we wanted to introduce a disco colour since, after 30 years, that festive style is still very vivid. Think about the success of Mamma Mia!, the musical, but also the movie, both of them based on songs by Abba.

Thus, for Peter Pan’s Following the Leader, we associated an ethnic, South African approach with the very disco. On the other hand, the music associated with Tigger became Celtic, whereas the one associated to Donald took Central European colours. One party – hundreds of references and colours, from ethnic to disco, jazz, jazz-rock and pop, with all kinds of mixes between them. The result is an incredible musical diversity to bring a joy and an energy to the celebration!

Each arrangement was created with great attention to authenticity, regarding each musical reference.

Above all, I’d want to stress the quality of the original material we work with –Disney music. It’s a pleasure to do all sorts of variations on those themes. Everybody can hum or whistle them. You can do anything with them, provided you love them! And I do love them!

From the start, we tried to enhance each Disney Character musically through different colours and rhythms. Take Tigger. He’s the vivid expression of the idea of “jumping for joy” and the songs the Sherman Brothers wrote for him are really full of that kind of energy. How to go further without repeating oneself? It appeared to me that the Celtic style was the solution because of its rhythmic specificity, incredibly lively, and because of its vibrant instrumental colours.

By the way, we recorded that music with Celtic musicians, true specialists, at Real World studios, nearby London. We used the fiddle, that folk violin, but also different Celtic flutes that brought their unique qualities to the music.

In the same way, for the South African tone of Following the Leader, we looked for musicians who were specialists in that kind of repertoire, playing authentic instruments. The flute they used is a very plain one, made of wood, with a very unusual pitch, which makes all its charm and authenticity. I remember the success that Paul Simon’s album, Graceland, had during the 80s, when he appealed to South African musicians, and I wanted to rekindle that spirit, with that very positive rhythm, and at the same time very serene. I thought it would be interesting to associate Mickey to that spirit, that serenity.

As for disco music, we went back to the archetypes of that style, not only from the rhythmical point of view, but also from the point of view of the strings, of the reverb and of the type of mix which immediately evokes that period.

As you can see, the music of Mickey’s Magical Party is filled with all kinds of references, sometimes very fugitive, but that stand as surprises, nods and homages.

Take Donald. I thought of using a theme that is devoted to him, Macho Duck, but less known, played by a wonderful Hungarian musician on a Cymbalum. Since he’s very good at improvising and he was pleased to play a Disney theme, he made several versions of it among which I had to choose. That was a wonderful meeting with him and all the musicians on that production, and each time, they brought their own style and their personality to the music.

And above that Cymbalum, I added a traditional violin from Central Europe playing a very famous Romanian folk song called The Lark. It’s a moment of virtuosity since the musician has to imitate the birds singing with his instrument, like in 18th century imitative music, in the vein of Leopold Mozart — Wolfgang Amadeus’ father—’s pieces. With Donald, it became not only in reference, but also a gag since he can’t fly. It is music itself that allows him to do it, in a way! In fact, it is when I thought of that piece that I got the idea of arranging the whole moment in the spirit of Central Europe.

That said, considering all these styles, there was a risk at dispersing oneself. But we kept our production focused on its main aims — humour and joy. And at the same time, we all feel the greatest respect toward the material we use and toward our guests. With all this, our path was clear. I just needed the sparkle for each piece, the idea that was going to make it unique.

The production of this music is also an opportunity to meet new people and I imagine that was the case here again.

I worked in Budapest with a wonderful orchestrator/arranger named Peter Pejtsik. Like me, he studied classical music first, then came to jazz and rock. Besides, he plays in a progressive rock band in Hungary. He’s very enthusiastic and energetic, always ready to have fun with music — that’s the reason why we got along so well!

He was very much involved in that production, notably playing the bass (he’s a cello player) and traditional Romanian fiddle in the Donald piece we’ve just talked about. And, to get as close as possible to the spirit of folk music, I sang and whistled the theme of The Lark to him so that he could play by ear. I didn’t want to use sheet music because that implies a different relation to music, more rigid. Traditional, folk music is one of oral tradition and transmission, which implies a more fluid, more improvised and more lively approach.

You don’t have to play a score, you have to charm your audience by any means: vibrato, bow technique, timbres, etc. That’s I was looking for in that piece.

On the other hand, for It’s Dance Time… in Discoveryland, you turned to techno music, with a brand new mix of Pirates of the Caribbean, following the version produced by Hans Zimmer and DJ Tiesto. How did you create your own version?

The same way we wanted to pay homage to Celtic, South African, jazz-rock and disco music, we imagined an homage to techno music. The only difference is that we thought it would be more accurate to do it in Discoveryland, a land devoted to technology.

Immediately, I turned to Show Director Emmanuel Lenormand. As you know, before starting to work on a project, I always ask the creators about their favourite songs to help me choose the right themes. So, he told me about Pirates of the Caribbean. Then, I started working on it with the idea of keeping with the same musical family as what had been done before in that matter, the archetypes of that kind of mix. In order to do that, I produced a first demo based on the rhythm of Pirates of the Caribbean and some elements from inside the main theme. Klaus Badelt’s theme is so well conceived that you can always use it as a whole or in parts and always recognize it. Just a few notes and you’re in.

So, I proposed that demo to Emmanuel to see if that was okay with him from the point of view of the dance. Then, we talked about instrumentation and sounds that we could add to it, and I contacted Doru Apreotesei, from Stockholm, to propose the project to him. He got very thrilled about it and, together, we created no less than eight versions, with different mixes. This way, we were able to bring a new personality to that theme, while keeping within the same musical family as the other remixes.

In a way, it was like composing a symphony in the style of Beethoven in respecting the idioms of his writing. There are people who think techno is formulaic, simplistic. On the contrary, I think techno offers a whole array of possibilities, and it was so much fun to work on that!

How did you musically transform the Disney Stars and Motorcars Parade of Disney’s Hollywood Studios into Disney’s Stars ‘n’ Cars, a unique mix of cavalcade and production number.

It really was a team effort since it’s about a kind of a “collage”, in the spirit of the Beaux-Arts in the 30s, a rendering of pre-existing material to which we added new elements. Show Director Emmanuel Lenormand also created that concept. He has a perfect knowledge of the Disney repertoire and he chose the music he wanted for his show.

You know, the Walt Disney Studios Park is like a guided tour through a contemporary fairytale. We work with recent myths, stories that date back to less than 100 years. So, the music of Disney’s Stars ‘n’ Cars is in that sense an homage to the greatest moments of cinema history, a presentation of Disney Characters beautifully dressed and driven in magnificent automobiles, celebrating popular culture. But there is also some wisdom in that culture, in each subject. Even a great wisdom.

Then, for the production number and the meet and greet, we chose cues taken from different shows, like a summary of the history of show business and cinema. I find that this association brings some freshness to that music, which makes our show particularly nice and a highlight in a day at the park. To me, it was a different kind of work, but fun all the same!

You’re also a record producer for Disneyland Paris. You’ve just produced two new albums, Disneyland Resort Paris en Musique and Les Parades en Musique, featuring the complete score of the Disney’s Once Upon A Dream Parade. Can you tell me about that aspect of your work as Director of Music?

To me, it’s a way to balance the different aspects of my work. I love to alternate writing and producing. Record production is a passion that comes from far away in time and space. That was my job in Romania almost 30 years ago when I was the artistic director of the only recording label of the country. That was really intense since I produced about 250 albums a year. We were publishing all kinds of music, but also literature, audiobook recordings.

Thanks to Disneyland Paris, I can do that again. I can produce only for the park, which means that our records are to be sold on site only, and focus on our music for shows, old or new, and even never heard before versions, to allow our fans to appreciate all the work done for each and every production.

For the music of the Disney’s Once Upon A Dream Parade, we didn’t present it the way you would hear it in the park, because, on site, the soundtrack is always changing, adapting according to the progression of the parade and to the position of the floats. So, we preferred to release a medley presenting the entirety of the music of each float, the way it was performed in concert at the Royal Albert Hall in London by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra two years ago.

It was a very complicated project since each cue is produced a particular way for the park, sometimes mono, sometimes with a different reverb according to the acoustics of the place. For the album, we have a stereo mix that offers nearly perfect listening conditions.

That’s the way I think of my job as a producer: to give the audience attractive tracklistings, but also to set a light on the talent of the artists. At the time I was in Romania, for four years I didn’t publish any of my music, to be free to be fair. That’s the reason why I conceive my records as an homage to the great artists that have worked with us.

Let me also pay tribute to my team, sound engineers Michael Obst, Sylvain Chesneau and Xavier Bongrand, without forgetting Estelle Champeau and Robert Fienga’s always smart and professional contribution. I also closely collaborate with our colleagues from the Merchandise department who help us to create designs in coherence with the one of the season or of a show.

Besides, I can tell you we’re working on another album for Mickey’s year, which will go out this summer, with material from Mickey’s Magical Party and other surprises…

It seems that the records produced at Disneyland Paris lean rather to shows than to attraction music. What are your thoughts on that?

As a record producer, Disneyland Paris’ aim is to produce records for the visitors of the park, so as producer of the park’s music, that’s why I do it with the idea that our guests will enjoy listening to it on a record at home, like a souvenir. And I consider it important to give priority to our own productions, in order to respect the artists that kindly accept to work with us.

Now, I’d like to pay tribute to Wayne Allwine, voice of Mickey Mouse, who passed away on 18th May 2009, and who had lent his voice to numerous shows and events for Disneyland Paris.

For my team and myself, he’s Mickey. Forever will he be our Mickey. I can’t think of him but in the present. I haven’t fully come to terms with his passing away yet.

I had the pleasure of working with him in Los Angeles, along with his wife, Russi Taylor —Minnie’s voice, and I have always looked forward to meeting him again. He came here [to Disneyland Paris] several times, notably for the 5th and the 10th anniversaries of the park.

When I think of Wayne Allwine, I think of an extraordinary human relationship, a generosity, a kind of desire to share and be with other people which you only see in exceptional people. Each time we met, we laughed, and at the same time, we had really deep moments talking about life, about being human, about friendship, about the world. Artists like him can’t pretend. You can pretend once or twice, but that’s all. That’s why he will always be our Mickey.

He was an immense actor and immense human being, someone critical for the Disney organization. People loved him and still love him for a reason. He was and is respected by his fellow actors and by fans. It’s the great loss of this Spring, and for us, a friend has gone. Our thoughts go to Russi…

Because of that, the new album you’re producing sounds like an homage.

Indeed, it’s an homage because, beyond the fact that Mickey is the icon of our company, we always thought about him when doing our records and our shows. We always tried to find a way to have him say a few words just to have the pleasure of meeting him again, through the phone or for real, here or in Los Angeles. And we always felt that warmth from him.

Of course, Mickey’s Magical Party is no exception! For this brand new year of fun, the resort called upon well-known Disney parks composer Scott Erickson to write the theme song which ultimately became “Mickey’s Magical Party Time!”, a lively, feel-good rock-pop anthem.

Scott knows the universe of Disney well. He has arranged numerous songs for the follow-ups to animated classics, such as Mulan II, Tarzan II, Mulan II and even Bambi II before becoming a frequent composer for Tokyo Disneyland amongst other resorts. But his relationship with Disney is deeper still, thanks to his upbringing of Mickey Mouse Club TV shows and visits to the original Disneyland in California.

How did you get into the realm of Disney theme park music?

It was probably 1997. I was working with a producer named Robbie Buchanan and Vasile Sirli called him to do a song for their parade that was Dancin’ (A Catchy Rhythm). So, Vasile came to Los Angeles to work with Robbie, and as I was working with Robbie, I came to meet him. I was production assistant, Robbie was the producer.

The first thing I ever wrote for one of the parks was a song called Pumpkin Party for Tokyo Disneyland. That was five years ago.

And in just a few years you’ve just come to work for almost every Disney park in the world!

I’ve done mostly songs and music for parades or for shows. It’s fantastic to work with Disney parks. Everybody is so professional and so talented. They only use the highest level of musicians and the music directors of the parks are so smart and so talented!

How did you come to work on the Mickey’s Magical Party song?

It was kind of a funny story. First of all, Vasile was trying to find a project for us to work on together for a long time and last year, probably in February or March, he called and asked me to send him a bunch of songs possibly for Halloween. It turned out that they didn’t have the budget last year to update the parade and change the Halloween song.

Then, in October, he called and said: “we have this new show” and he explained about Mickey’s Magical Party to me. “We’d love you to write a song”. And there was one of the songs I had sent them that they really liked and that hadn’t been used for anything. “We love this song. If you want to change that into the song for our show, that would be great!”

So, since nobody owned it at that time, I could do anything I wanted with that song and we changed it from a Halloween song into the Party Time song. We added a big band in it, made it bigger and changed some things, and that was how we did it!

How did the creators of Mickey’s Magical Party tell you about the spirit of the party so that you could change your song?

We didn’t change the music very much. We changed some of the lyrics that were specifically about Halloween to be more about parties and being happy and having a great, fun time. For instance, when I compose a song for a show, I like to put the name of the show in my song so that everything is tied together.

How did you write that song?

The writing of this song was different from what I usually do. Usually, I write it at home in my studio. But at that time, I was in Las Vegas producing a Christmas record for Barry Manilow. We were mixing it there. And during the mixing of a record, the producer doesn’t have a lot to do. Usually, he waits for the mixer to do his job.

So, I was there, bored for a week and a half. So I borrowed a keyboard from the stage and I brought a couple of my computers, and I set up a little studio. That’s how, mixing a Christmas record, I composed a song for Halloween!

How did you write the lyrics of the song?

Probably two thirds of the lyrics were left over from the original demo, and then anything that had to do with Halloween was taken out and changed to be more specific to the show. Also, Vasile told me that there were some banners around the park that say “Welcome” in different languages, and he said it would be fun to incorporate that somehow into the song. So, I did.

With Vasile, it was a give-and-take kind of exchange, going back and forth and working together until we all came up with a structure of a song that we were happy with.

It seems that Kat de Blois was very much involved in that process, too.

Very much so. I was introduced to her on this project. She had a lot of input. Vasile was working in Romania at this time, so I started to call Kat to get her input and her specific ideas, because she’s the Creative Director of the show.

Also, she’s American as opposed to Vasile and Christophe Leclercq, the Show Director, so she was able to add some possible lyric ideas or some specific images because she speaks the language a little more fluently. She was very helpful.

Can you tell me about the main arrangement of the song?

It has a kind of a rock feel. We kept that, but made it a little broader. And to add some emotional feel, we added some strings over the chorus and over the second verse. I was doing another project for Disney – I was recording some promotional versions of When You Wish Upon a Star with an orchestra in Prague – and on the same session, I had some extra time so I recorded the strings for this one.

We also added horns. They’re pretty characteristic of theme park music but we wanted to use them in a more “pop” kind of way than in a theme park one. They add a little more excitment and a little more energy. For the bass part, I got in touch with Lee Sklar, who is a famous bass player with a long beard who’s worked a lot with Phil Collins during the 80s, and who’s a good friend of mine.

I called my usual guitar player, Tim Pierce, who plays for all kinds of famous records, and my drummer, Charlie Morgan, who lives in Nashville. So, I sent him the track music and he played drums in Nashville and then sent over the audio through the internet.

That’s my favourite part of the production of any song, this one included: doing sessions with all these incredibly talented people that I have the privilege of getting to work with, and watching them do what they do so well. All the musicians and singers and the orchestras – I’m such a fan! So, we had people from everywhere: Prague, Nashville, Paris…

Percussions were part of your background. Does that influence the way you approach rhythm in your songs?

The very first thing, I started playing the piano when I was 5, and then when I was 11, I started to play the drums. I continued to play piano while doing a lot of percussion in orchestras and classical percussion through college. Because of that, I like to change rhythm so that the rhythm is not the same all the way through the song. It changes several different times. It definitely is an outgrowth of my experience as a percussionist and a drummer.

Stylistically, there seems to be a Blues Brothers-meets-High School Musical touch in your song. Do you agree?

Yes! The High School Musical franchise is now part of the company’s creative message. With a little touch of Disney theme park music, too! The Disney theme parks seem to have their own, specific kind of style of production. We’re trying to update it and modernize it but it remains a very identifiable sound.

Can you tell me about the different arrangements of your song presented in the park?

I was surprised to discover Vasile’s orchestral arrangement. I didn’t know he was doing it and it turned out fantastic, just great. I love it!

As for the techno one, it’s a remix done in Cleveland by a guy called Tony Miracle. I sent him all of my tracks and we sent him the mix. He rebuilt it with different things. He did it all and I co-produced it with him. He’d send it to me and I gave him notes and sent it to Vasile and Vasile added some comments. There were two or three small revisions and that was it.

Mostly, it was great! But to make it a little more “Disney”, the very first version he sent didn’t have quite as many “sparkling” sounds or “Disney” kind of effects. It was kind of darker and we had to remind him that it was intended for a Disney park and that we had to add a little bit of sparkle, a little bit of magic. So, he did that and he did a great job.

You seem very much aware of what the Disney magic truly is. How’s that?

My first memory of Disney music is the Electrical Parade at Disneyland when I was ten. It was so great. The lights were so magical and wonderful, but the music was just fantastic. And it was really a thrill for me to actually come to know the composer of that piece, Jean-Jacques Perrey! I’ve been a fan of this guy forever! Also, I love animation. I used to watch cartoons on Saturday mornings.

Probably when I was 10 years old, I bought a book, The Illusion of Life, by Disney Legends Ollie Johnston and Frank Thomas and had it in my bookshelf for years and used to look at it. It was great! But my first Disney trivia personal connection is that I was born on the day Jungle Book was released: October 17th 1967! In the 60s and 70s, Disney made records for children to learn things. I actually have them hanging in my studio here: one is called Fun With Music – 30 Favorite Disney Songs, another is called Learning to Tell Time, and Acting Out the ABCs.

And when I was in Grade School, the new Mickey Mouse Club was on and was so addicted to it! My fantasy in the world was to be a Mouseketeer. Friday was called Discovery Day and they taped the show at Disneyland, at the Carnation Plaza. So, of course, when we got to go there two years later after watching, I freaked out when I saw the Carnation Plaza where the Mouseketeers did their show every Friday.

And at the same time, they were still airing original Mickey Mouse Club episodes on TV. So, I used to watch that when I was a kid, too. Ironically, Don Grady, who was part of the original Mickey Mouse Club, became a very talented songwriter and musician, and we crossed paths seven or eight years ago and we’ve become very good friends! So, my connection to Disney seems to be pretty long and deep!

And I guess that’s an experience you share with your kids. How is it for them to have their father make Disney music?

It’s thrilling to get to watch my 6 year old daughter and 4 year old son experience these shows in a different way because the songs they hear at home come out to television, theater or Disney parks. Just after she turned four, my daughter sang along with the children’s group on a Disney Princess parade that I wrote for Tokyo. That was thrilling. We got the video from Tokyo and every time that part of the song comes out, she knows that she was part of those girls singing along with those Disney Princesses! What could be better?

Of course, my kids are my test audience! When I write something for one of the shows, I bring them out here and they tell me if they love it or hate it. And believe me, they don’t love everything, especially my daughter! She’s not an easy audience! Here’s a great story: I wrote a Halloween show for Tokyo Disneyland, and in one of the songs, I wrote a section for Princesses dancing around their castle singing La-Dee-Da-Dee-Da… I had the demo playing in my car, and my daughter was not quite convinced.

She said: “I really like it except for one part: Disney Princesses don’t say La-Dee-Da! They just say: La-La-La”. It just turned out that I had lunch with the Creative Director from Tokyo Disneyland a week later. I told him about it and he said: “you know what? I think she’s right!” My daughter is an expert on all things Princesses, that for sure!

• With thanks to Scott Erickson, Vasile Sirli, Aurélie Massin and Magali Arnéodo!

Then, when night falls, it all comes together with Enchanted Candleabration — the famous tree, castle and lamppost-illuminating spectacular that first begin in Paris and has now sparked a whole series of similar shows at every other Disney resort.

In Paris, it would have been easy to re-play the park’s hugely successful hit song “Chante, c’est noël…” itself, but, as Jérémie Noyer learns, that wasn’t enough for Vasile Sirli when he came to score this unforgettable Christmas spectacle…

Can you tell me about the musical concept of Enchanted Candleabration, with its unexpected mix of symphonic, orchestral music with a Broadway-like ballet, the One Man’s Dream number featuring Disney’s Princes & Princesses?

I have to say that I’ve never had the slightest doubt about that association. From the very beginning, Show Director Christophe Leclercq had the idea to treat the Disney Princes & Princesses in both a classical and a contemporary way. And today, a Broadway number is considered as being classic. We had many different options, yet I believe that this one works best. And that’s also the opinion of all the creators of the show.

In addition, I do respect and admire the music created by my colleagues in California, Florida and Tokyo. That’s the reason why I decided to adapt One Man’s Dream by Bruce Healey, Music Director at Disneyland, California, in collaboration with Christophe Leclercq, the director and choreographer of the show. This particular number is dedicated to the dreams of every child, big or small, dreams of an imaginary world of fairytales, with Princes and Princesses, and that song perfectly fits that concept.

How did you manage to integrate One Man’s Dream into the harmony of Enchanted Candleabration?

We took very good care of the choice and relations between the different styles. We didn’t want to draw the attention to the music, but rather to the overall show. We wanted that contrast to express the fact that something new is happening. And at the same time, it had to fit the Princes & Princesses concept, which was already part of the original Disneyland, California concept.

In editing, we were driven to make the result as poetic and artistic possible, in respect of Bruce’s original intentions. You go from one style to another as if you would turn the pages of a magical storybook.

The most magical moment is certainly the illumination.

Absolutely. That’s the moment for us to invite Tinkerbell to launch the illumination of the Castle, Main Street and the giant Christmas Tree. The whole park is vibrating, chiming…

She illuminates the Castle and plays with the lamposts along Main Street. Musically speaking, that moment is based on two original pieces introduced by the Peter Pan theme. The first one, Lumina, is an intrumental piece accompanying the illumination of the Castle, and the second one, Ring the Bells, is a choral piece played in sync with the illumination of the lamposts. Jay Smith wrote the lyrics and, to interpret them, we got in touch with the same artists who used to sing carols in the park, the Disney Carollers.

The style of Ring the Bells is very interesting, a very unusual blending of different influences.

You know how I love to mix influences! So, there’s a touch of English traditional music, with very calm harmonies, and a touch of American, jazz swing, along with ethnic elements coming from Eastern Europe, where I come from myself.

Ring the Bells is all the more successful when we hear it as the snow is falling every day on Main Street…

We are very grateful that people love it so much, and we feel it through the fact that the CD is very successful, too. We’re very proud of that!

He plays keyboards, percussion and also conducts. His educational background includes a Bachelor of Music Composition from California State University Fullerton and graduate studies in composition and orchestration at the University of Southern California School of Music.

Joining the Walt Disney Company as a composer and arranger in 1973, he then became Music Coordinator and Arranger in 1980. During this time, Bruce wrote arrangements and orchestrations for many projects, including Disney television specials, Super Bowl halftime shows, and parades and stage shows for Disney Parks. In 1986, he became Musical Director for Walt Disney Attractions.

If you’ve ever been inside a Disney park — and let’s hope so — you’ll have heard his work, or his influence, somewhere. He has directly composed scores ranging from ‘Fantasmic!’ to ‘One Man’s Dream’, and, of course… Disney’s Fantillusion…

The music of Disney’s Fantillusion Parade shines as one of the most symphonic parade scores ever written. Can you tell me about that?

Yes, it does. All the other parades before it were smaller types of things. In order to be able to represent all of these different themes that we were going to see as visuals from the films — for example all of the different themes of the Evil section of the parade, I wanted to use an approach of variations on an original theme that I could mould to whatever shape I needed it to be, to support all the themes included.

So, I decided: what better way to go about it than to use the device of the classical composers in my own way, such as Haydn, Beethoven or Mozart. What would they do if they were given the assignment of working with this kind of format? So, the theme and variation approach would be flexible enough to allow all that to happen. Using a more classically oriented theme, something that had the kind of feel and structure of a classical symphony, if you will –although not the scope of a classical symphony, but something that had that kind of structure to it and allowed more variations, would give me the best opportunity to succeed and would also be more timeless.

I didn’t want to write something that would be stylistically limited to a particular time period. I wanted to write something that would be more timeless and would last for a long time. Something that would be accessible to just about anybody who heard it, so that they could say: “ah, that sounds familiar to me in some way” and they would immediately accept it as an interesting and entertaining idea. That’s how I came up with a theme that has got some classical music value to it and can be shaped and moulded into forms, allowing me to incorporate all the Disney themes in a variety of ways.

The original Tokyo Disneyland Fantillusion parade opened in 1995, not very long after the opening of Disneyland Paris, which presented more symphonic music than any other Disney park. Do you think that had any kind of influence on your choice in that matter?

I think so. As Disneyland Paris came online, Vasile Sirli was producing music for that park using orchestras in Europe. In doing that, he was looking at different ways of representing the musical ideas, and I think he came up with that approach of using an orchestra for a lot of their projects in a very appealing way.

At the same time, the late 80′s, with the Little Mermaid score — which was not really symphonic but started to lean at that direction — and Beauty and the Beast after that, which was much more symphonic in nature, the film scores also gave us permission at the theme parks to go into that more symphonic realm. The Disneyland Paris park began doing that from the very beginning of its existence and we started doing those kinds of things as well.

The Christmas Fantasy Parade at Disneyland, in 1993, had a pretty good sized orchestra and some of the “symphony” feel to it from time to time. But the concept of it was not symphonic from beginning to end. It was just orchestral where it needed it be, as opposed to Fantillusion which is more symphonic all the time. The whole concept is symphonic.

You not only composed the Fantillusion score, but also orchestrated and conducted it!

Yes. I orchestrate what I arrange and compose. It’s just part of my process. There are a lot of film composers now who don’t orchestrate their own work, but I’m a more traditionally trained musician – composition, orchestration and arranging go hand in hand in my brain.

In this parade, there are some interactions between lights (notably on the float and on the Castle) and music. Did you take that aspect into account during the writing process?

In some cases, I did, yes. In the Enchanted Fairy Garden, I composed and orchestrated the music so that the floats could sparkle or the Castle could change colour.

I didn’t specifically know how they would be programmed at the time. I just made musical pictures that afforded the opportunity to make those kinds of programming changes. Because the music was written and recorded well before the floats were finished. So, when they built the floats, they were reacting to the music that I wrote.

We actually had some discussions about what the opportunities were for that kind of programming. We talked about places here and then, like at the beginning of the show moment with the “starlight, starbright” poem. I wrote the music that way deliberately so that they could reflect the music changes in the lighting.

Since the floats weren’t finished at the time you composed the score, what did you draw you inspiration from?

I had what we call a treatment, which is like a concept document that describes the concept of the parade and the fact that it was going to be in three blocks, that the first one would be an Enchanted Fairy Garden and was going to have lots of flowers and fairies, and lots of sparkling lights, with opportunities for lighting changes.

It also described who the cast members would be in each block, in other words that there’s going to be Flora, Fauna and Merryweather, etc. So, I just started off with the logo float opening the parade. I also had storyboards, and each storyboard was basically a drawing of what the float might look like. Of course, those floats changed a lot during the development, but that’s what I started with.

With storyboards to guide you, it seems that this process was very close to filmmaking.

Yes, it’s very much so. Except that in animation, after storyboard, you get pencil tests animation and that pre-determines a length of time possibly. Then, you get colour tests, then you get clean-up and you see all these different stages of animation along the way as it’s growing and coming to life. With a parade, you get storyboards and then that’s it. When the floats are built and ready to go on the street, then you see it. Until then, a lot of things remain in the imagination of the composer, the choreographer and the director.

Your music begins with some kind of a fanfare. Is it reminiscent of the live bands that accompanied the first Disneyland parades?

Yes. You know, Disneyland’s Very Merry Christmas Parade and Fantasy On Parade had live bands in them. One of the great things about those is that they had an opening unit that was a fanfare unit. They would have about nine fanfare trumpeters that would start off, and there would be a whole brass band that was behind them. So, the parade started off with a great, big fanfare, to announce the arrival of the parade.

And I wrote the fanfare of Fantillusion to achieve the same purpose: tell the audience that the parade was starting and there was something big about to happen. In place of an extended overture, it seemed like the fanfare idea was the most effective at getting people’s attention and saying: listen and get ready to watch and be entertained!

I do that a lot with parades. It’s difficult to get away from that idea because if we do something that goes the other direction, with a more subtle opening, it would not be as successful outdoors, with all the distraction and noise.

So, you kept with a tradition while always moving forward.

Yes, and it’s always a great challenge to come up with new, fresh ideas that still serve the purpose of the show. It would be easy to do something completely different, but we would not be as effective because there are physical considerations of the environment from which we have to take our inspiration.

Did you want to nod to the Main Street Electrical Parade in some way in your music?

Well, I admire the theme from the Electrical Parade. It has its own contrapuntal approach, if you will. I like the idea of that and I wanted to explore that idea in Fantillusion by using counterpoint. There are electronics in Fantillusion, but they are more “happy Disney sounds”, bells and things like that.

How did you create the main Fantillusion theme?

It was inspired by what I know of Bach and Mozart and, although I don’t pretend to put myself in the class with Bach and Mozart, I came up with a theme that was attractive to me at the time. I wanted to it to be simple enough to be accessible to just about anybody and sophisticated enough to allow developments of the theme in a variety of ways.

When creating it, did you anticipate the way you would include classic Disney themes in it?

Very much so. I constructed a form that allowed for the exposition of the theme and then allowed for certain areas of that to be used as development areas or places where these other themes could be applied. That’s why, if you hear each scene separately, you’ll hear the Fantillusion theme pretty much in the same place in the structure of the music every time, and the other Disney themes always appear in the same development areas.

Can you tell me about your way of using the classic Disney themes within your music?

Of course, you can’t use the original recordings, but you can certainly make your own, new arrangements and treatments, a re-composition of the original themes and new orchestrations and recordings of those. That’s what I did with Fantillusion, and combined them with my own themes that would make a unified piece of music for the whole thing.

In a feature animation sequel, the story of the sequel may be complementary to the original but not the same. So, the musical moments and the message of the lyrics of a particular song might not apply in a sequel, they may have no place in that story. In the Fantillusion parade, it’s a re-telling of the stories through images and the guests’ memory of what the story is about. So, it’s not really a sequel; it’s kind of a refreshment of people’s memory of the movie.

Disney animated sequels composers are sometimes confronted to legal issues to re-use classic Disney themes. How do you deal with that?

Believe it or not, in parades, when you’re using a lot of different themes from a lot of different films, we’re in what one calls the “background music” context. In other words, it’s not a stage performance of the music. Nobody is out there singing it. They may be dancing on it, but the music is always in a background context to the visual. So, the legalities of the use of that music are different.

How did you conceive musically the rest of the parade?

In Tokyo Disneyland, in the development of the parade, we had discussions about what was appealing to the Japanese audience. There are a couple of concepts that are very appealing to the Japanese audience and they really line up very well with what was appealing to American family audience.

One of them is the concept of fantasy — the idea of fairytales — princes and princesses, and the battle between Good and Evil. And then, there is the idea of gardens and fairies. The Japanese audience very much enjoys this kind of escapism into the visuals of gardens, fairies and flowers. All of those beautiful visuals, fantastic and fanciful visuals and things like that.

So, the whole opening section of the parade, which we refer to as the Enchanted Fairy Garden is directly inspired by that concept and that aesthetic. I took the theme that I wrote and I embellished it and wrote variations on it for each one of the units of this Enchanted Fairy Garden, and they all kind of merge together into one long theme and variations based on this one main theme.

There is no single one of the Disney themes in that part of the parade, until you come to the show moment which has all the Disney themes like The Working Song and Heigh Ho woven into that almost frenetic, fairy-type of a production number. And it’s the same for the two other chapters of the story, with the Disney Villains and then with the Disney Princes and Princesses.

I have to admit that the Villains section’s show stop, The Light Turns Into Night is certainly my favourite because of the drama and the dense counterpoint.

I was very happy to get the opportunity to stretch that far and get into the darker side of our emotional reaction. Because that’s what those Villains do: you can’t have light without dark; happiness doesn’t mean anything without sadness. It’s about the contrast of those things. The flow of the parade starts out very fancifully and happily, hosted by Mickey Mouse, and then there’s that transition into all the bad things that happen in this story, and then the transition into the Happy Ending of the whole thing. So, it’s kind of a very large but simple arching form of Good to Bad to Good.

The orchestration of the Jafar section is quite unusual. Can you tell me about it?

There are tabla drums coming from India and dumbek drums, used in Middle East, along with a string instrument similar to an oud, but more like a balalaïka. They were all live instruments.

And then, we have very low-key harps for Ursula.

I used two harps in most of the orchestration for Fantillusion so that I get enough weight on that kind of a colour. Two harps allow you to do more things, change keys quickly and do chromatic writing. Ravel and Debussy, of course, did that a lot.

In that Villains section, music seems to be no more about Mozart, but rather about early 20th century.

Yes. I really like Eastern European aesthetic. Working in a minor key is much more harmonically interesting, especially if you’ve worked in major key for some much of the time.

I wanted to make The Light Turns Into Night and the Ghouls Dance go another step further in terms of harmonic and counterpuntal sophistication. So, I had to make sure it was more evolved than the music that happened before. And at the end of the cue, I wrote a kind of a passacaglia, with strong, Japanese taiko drums played by a group called Kodo that performs concerts of authentic Japanese music mostly based on taiko drumming.

The drums are very unusual, very large, all hand-made. Authentic taiko drums are very expensive because they’re made out of one tree! It’s a very interesting instrument, and I knew that the Japanese appreciate the sound of them and are very familiar with that sound, so I wanted to use them in my orchestration.

And there’s also some choir part in it!

Yes. I used choir a little bit in this Evil section, but I didn’t really want to expose the choir in any significant way until the finale. But I did use it in the Maleficent part. It’s another element that makes that part of the parade unique in its identity and also kind of acknowledges the choir-sung ending of almost every classic Disney film. I wanted to integrate that into the music of the parade.

For the French version of Fantillusion, Disneyland Paris Music Director Vasile Sirli asked you to help in the new mix of your music. What changes did you make?

We changed a few things. We changed one of the voices in the show that we needed to change and we combined all of the three fairies, Flora, Fauna and Merryweather, which used to be on separate floats in Tokyo. So, we combined them all into one float. So, all of that dialogue was re-edited and re-mixed. Now, the three fairies tell that little story and make their own comments kind of alternately on the one float.

There were also pieces of music from the Tokyo mix that were eliminated from the Disneyland Paris version because the number of floats is different. It was a directorial choice, mostly. But I mostly worked on the souvenir soundtrack. Based on the content of the Disneyland Paris parade, I edited a new souvenir soundtrack CD and made a new mix of that material, especially for this CD.

Indeed, with that CD, we can enjoy the overall music of the parade, yet not the ones of the show stops.

Actually, I was given a time limitation as to how much time I could have for the whole piece and how long the whole piece could last. Completing what I call “the version as the parade passes by”, took all of the time that I had, so, I wasn’t able to include the other pieces of music.

I would love to see another version of the CD come out that has all the pieces of music either on separate track or part of a newly edited version of the soundtrack.

Vasile Sirli is well-known for his respect of his fellow composers from the other Disney parks, so it’s no surprise he asked you to return to the score.

Yes. And I appreciate that! I look forward to another opportunity to work with him like that!

We’re now coming to the end of the fifth year that Disney’s Fantillusion illuminates the nights of Disneyland Paris. How do you feel about that?

I am very happy that it’s been so well received in Paris. I hope it has a longer life still and is bringing a lot of magic to the guests there.

Did your work on Fantillusion change your approach to the parade music you produced after it?

That’s a good question. I think it made me aware — especially after I heard it in its environment and saw how people reacted to it — of how far one could go in terms of sophistication and complexity and still be able to be entertaining to people of all ages, to put something into a piece of work that can appeal to people on a variety of levels.

You don’t need to know anything about music to listen to Fantillusion and appreciate one act at a time as it goes past you.

The background of Richard Bellis is distinguished by its surprising diversity: child actor, touring rock ‘˜n roll music director, arranger/conductor for Las Vegas headliners, university lecturer, award-winning Hollywood composer (Stephen King’s It) and prolific Disney attraction music composer.

An heir and friend of the late Buddy Baker, Disney’s legendary musical guru (who was one of the first Disneyland and Epcot composers, musical director of the Mickey Mouse Club and composer of so many shorts and films like Winnie the Pooh and The Fox and the Hound), Richard Bellis is one of the most respected artists in the business, having created no less than the scores of Star Tours, Alien Encounter, Indiana Jones Adventure, the new China and Mexico pavillions in Epcot, The Laugh Floor at Walt Disney World or the Moteurs… Action ! Stunt Show Spectacular at Walt Disney Studios Park (and Disney’s Hollywood Studios in Florida) to name a only few.

Today, he’s joining us to talk about his music for the newest addition to the Walt Disney Studios Park in Paris, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror.

You’re the composer of the music for the very first Tower of Terror at Disney’s Hollywood Studios park in Florida. How did that all begin?

I think I was brought on well before the site, the construction was finished. So, it must have been about a year before it actually opened, in 1993.

The attraction is based on mystery, but its music is kind of mysterious, too.

There’s this famous Marius Constant theme. This is very strange: the first note is actually a pick up. It doesn’t start on the down beat. It’s written very differently than any of us would ever imagine that theme! It’s called Etrange N. 3. And there’s also Milieu N.2. They were originally not themes for the Twilight Zone series but concert pieces that finally got used in the series and in the attraction.

It was an interesting little instrumentation, a small orchestration, something like a couple of trumpets, a couple of trombones, two or three woodwinds, two percussions and a very small string section. I think we actually got the concert orchestration and made the rest of the music around that orchestration to stay in the tone of the original music.

What material did you start from?

It was mostly from the television show. If I remember right, Jerry Goldsmith did several of the Twilight Zone and, having always been a fan of Jerry’s, I’m sure that I listened to the episodes that he did. He also did the movie, but I remember Jerry doing a lot of television music early in his career and he did several episodes like that.

This is the music we can hear, of course, during our visit in the library, watching the famous “lost episode” on tv…

We re-recorded everything. We didn’t use any of the original recordings as we always do with Disney not only for clearance purposes but because the playback systems always vary and they wanted the sound as pristine as possible at the time the attraction opened.

So, the television sequence opens with that theme and then there is some underscore I had to create. You know, there’s always a fabulous backstory with Disney. It sometimes takes people several times to go through an attraction before they actually get the backstory. They always have one because it’s the guiding vision that everybody subscribes to. This idea of an old Hollywood hotel and the elevator. All of that was a very clear story and vision. That became the underscore and the film with the family going into the hotel and the little girl appearing in the hallways. So, I had to write a piece of underscore for that.

But there’s also, at the same time, a little dance band, a little small combo that we wrote music for and that is in another room [playing at The Tip Top Club, at the top of the Tower]. You don’t see them in the film but you sometimes hear them. There’s a fiddle, a clarinet and a piano, the traditional society band.

Then, after going through the boiling room, we get into the elevator…

We had various ascents and descents. The interesting thing here is that the ascents and descents had to be different lengths because the elevators alternated and one would go two floors up and then one floor down and the other one would go one floor up and then another floor up so that they would never be on the same floor at the same time. So, the ascent might be two floors worth of timing or it might be one floor worth of timing.

And in the original one, then, the elevator moved forward to something called the Fifth Dimension, which hasn’t been re-created in the California or Paris versions. So, the Fifth Dimension was a horizontal ride in the car and we sort of re-created something similar to the opening sequence of the Twilight Zone series, with the clock ticking and various “soundscapes” more than music.

Can you tell me about the “show” floors: the hallway mirror and the ghostly corridor?

These floors are mostly based on effects. You know, the sound effects person for WDI for years and years and years has been Joe Herrington and recently, his son, Ben Herrington, has become more and more active with WDI. He’s not an employee there, he’s got his own company. But we’ve worked a lot together, notably on the Stunt Show when it went to Florida.

He was very active in doing the new sound effects for Tower of Terror and the one with the Protools [a professional sound mixing system] rig who actually mixed everything onboard the vehicle. The ghostly corridor is in fact a combination of Twilight Zone instrumentation and tonality with a bit of Herrmann’s Psycho rhythms, you know. Not really screetching violins but a little of that taste with the tonality and instrumentation of Twilight Zone.

And then are… the drops!

In the first one, it was a single cue because it was a single drop. The California one that I rode on recently is several drops: down and back up and back down, and the ride varies from time to time which makes it a little bit interesting! The most interesting difference between the two was that we, of course, recorded the original music on tape and there was really no way other than a cassette machine with the music played back in the elevator shaft.

In California and in Paris, the music is actually onboard the vehicle. That was something, technically, to provide the music in these conditions! We actually took a protools rig on board the vehicle, strapped it down and did the vehicle mixing onboard the vehicle in California, which we could never do, of course, in Florida. The only thing we could do with the first one was take the plunge and the WDI guys were letting their pencils float in the air! But it’s so much more effective, I think, with the music onboard the vehicle! I remember the first attraction where the music was that way was the Indiana Jones Adventure attraction in Disneyland, for which I did the music, too. This one was just an extension of that.

Anything in the elevator is a combination of acoustic and synthetic (originally, it was merely a synth drop), mostly on the ascent. Once you drop and then you start to ascent, there is this train-like sound coming that takes you back up to the top. I don’t think anybody hears the drop because of the screaming!

You didn’t write the music for the lobby, I guess.

No. That was sort of a needle drop of period pieces. My music starts with the television presentation in the library.

Which version of the Tower do you prefer?

I think the California/Paris one is much more effective. The activity in the vehicle, the more drops thing is terrific. Everything is just better. The library, I think, is better, and the boiler room is fabulous, even though there’s no music in there, just sound effects, that are great.

It was lovely to revisit those things when I worked on the new version, and in some cases, to be able to re-mix, having more knowledge and more time to go back and re-mix things that we recorded years and years ago.

There’s also an impressive version of the attraction at Tokyo DisneySea.

Yes! I wanted to do that! But it was actually done by Joel McNeely. Apparently, it’s based on an entirely different backstory because Japanese visitors have little knowledge of the Twilight Zone series. That’s the reason why I was anxious to do it…

You’re also a film music composer and a television composer. How do you see your work on attraction music regarding those two?

First, there’s the question of credits. The fact that there is no credit there is fine because, actually, there’s very little credit for any of the people who put in hundreds or thousands of hours creating these attractions. As far as the working conditions, my work is actually appreciated. Bruce Broughton (CinéMagique, Honey, I Shrunk the Audience) and I have talked about this and are in agreement: we love working for Disney.

From my point of view, they respect my input and my work generally more than the film and television business. You may have heard about the controversy with Elliot Goldenthal’s score and the score of 300 [300 composer was suspected of having plagerized one of Goldenthal's score, JN], and it had to happen. I don’t know anything about how it happened, but I know that, for years, directors and producers have fallen in love with temp tracks (preliminary soundtracks edited before the composer comes on board using other films’ scores to guide the composer in his creating the actual score of the film, JN) and have asked composers to come as close to the temp as they possibly can.

That happens in film and television a lot but it doesn’t happen at Disney. They only go for the real thing. If they want something in the spirit of Randy Newman, they get Randy Newman. It’s always original music.

At WDI, you’re much more a part of the creative team. Your input is welcomed from, as I said at the beginning of this interview, a year beforehand. And on the project I’m working on now, I feel like I’m an equal member of the creative team and that’s fabulous! So, you understand I actually prefer the attraction music, the theme park music. And it’s where I get budget as well.

You know what happens with television music and much of film music, everything except the A-list pictures: the budgets have all come down. So, now you’re trying to make just as much music as you did before with a lot less time and a lot less money. When I get through an electronic score, something that I’ve done all of the music and all of the parts on, I have to realize that I’ve just been the best bass player, the best fiddle player, the best drumer on the session, and that’s not good.

The product is always better when it’s touched by other people. Being isolated is not good. With Disney, the budgets are realistic and, as they say, they know that it’s gonna run for 15 or 20 years. So, we take our time to do the best music possible!

• Listen to Richard Bellis music and discover “The Emerging Film Composer”, his book on the film music business at www.richardbellis.com.

Just Like We Dreamed It’ is the song that has now introduced and carried Disney’s Once Upon a Dream Parade for countless performances since its 15th Anniversary debut. The songwriter behind the latest, and it has to be said, most popular entry in Disneyland Paris’ successful catalogue of popular music: Sunny Hilden.

Ms. Hilden, thank you so much for talking with us about the wonderful song you wrote for Disneyland Resort Paris’ 15th Anniversary!

Thank you. I’m very excited about it!

How would you introduce yourself?

Well, I am a songwriter and a singer. I’ve been a songwriter since being alive, I think. I just started writing things when I was a little girl. It just always was thrilling to me to put the notes and the words together. I’ve been doing that my whole life and never really wanted to do anything else.

I grew up in the Midwest, in the middle part of the United States. When I would say that I wanted to be a songwriter, the reactions back there would always be: “well, that’s what you’re going to do on a Saturday afternoon as a hobby, but what are going to do for a living?” But I wanted to do that for a living! And I love writing for Disney! It’s just always so positive! And there’s such a beautiful world in Disney.

You know, I only write positive lyrics. So, that’s just a perfect fit for me!

How do you write positive songs?

I think, for so many people of all ages, but for children especially and teenagers, we keep on creating who we are by what we hear and see in the world. A lot of people take their lessons not just from their parents and their teachers (and a lot of people only have one parent at home or no parents at all). They have to figure our their place in the world and how they feel about things. And so many of the messages we get are violent and negative.

So, I think it’s so important to send out into the world messages of positive content. You can dream anything you want to be that’s beautiful and you can make this by changing your thoughts. Think about your world and how you think about yourself and your place in your world. I just think it’s so important to have those kind of messages out there through art more than anything. It’s so important to learn “two times five equals ten” and things like that, but every single day of life, every moment of your life, you are living in your own brain, in your own world. So, how you talk to yourself in your head, I think, is more important than anything that people can learn.

They don’t specifically teach things like that in school. You’re taught very, very scientific things and mathematical things, and history and a lot of subjects that are very important and wonderful to learn. Art and music are some of the first things that are taken away from schools when they have to cut the budgets. I’ve never had a class of how to think, how to dream, how to live so that you can be anything you want to be. So, I think Disney is a beautiful teacher for the world, with a very important message. That’s why it’s such a wonderful thing to be a part of it!

How did you first come to work with Disney?

I had heard about the new park, Disney’s California Adventure, which was going to be right next to Disneyland in Los Angeles. They were going to be opening with a brand-new parade and they were having a difficult time finding the right song for it. I just came up with an idea that they liked very, very much: not just a song for the parade, but also an invitation for people to come visit the park and people to come visit the entire state of California.

So, I came with a song that worked on different levels, Come Away With Me. It was very fun to be part of that project. There are so many creative people involved in creating a parade. It’s just spectacular. The drawings that the artists came up with were just beautiful! And to see all that live was just glorious!

You also worked for Hong Kong Disneyland, as well.

Yes. I did the music for their parade, too, that came up last summer. It was a very fun project as well.

Now, about Just Like We Dreamed It. How did you manage to put dreams into music?

That’s a whole story! I have a giant, stuffed Winnie the Pooh that my father gave to me a long time ago. You know, I have stuffed animals all over my house! Angels, too. All sorts of positive things that inspire me. I’ve got angels all over my piano. They’re playing trumpets and guitars and singing. All of them play or dance. They have to audition to get there! So, I have this giant Winnie the Pooh, and when I was writing the song for the parade, I also had all the pictures of the floats, just all over my floor, beautiful, big picture of them they sent me.

I was just staring at the pictures and thought: “What am I going to write?” I had lots of little ideas of what to do, but I wasn’t quite sure what the overall theme was going to be. So, I took my Winnie the Pooh and kept asking him: “What do the children want to find here, at Disneyland Paris? What would they want to hear when they see this parade going by?”. Sometimes, my stuffed animals talk back to me and he said: “well, if you dream me alive, you’ll dream a song to life!” And that’s it! You dream and you dream and the song comes to you! And that’s what these Disney characters are doing in the park.

These are characters that somebody just drew on a page and, if the people who read the books and see the pictures love them enough, after they close the book or walk away from the theater, they dream them to life by just thinking about them and loving them and having them affect their life. So, I thought: “this is a great theme for the parade!” Because there’s all these wonderful, wonderful characters that people have known for their whole life and that generations of people have grown up with Cinderella and all the princesses … the mothers and fathers that go to the parks have told all these stories to their kids. I just pictured how the actual characters would love to meet the people who have been reading about them.

So, it’s a song about the characters on the floats coming to meet the guests that are in the park, and also, it’s a song about the guests in the park that come to meet the characters on the floats. And then, on another level, I wanted this song to be a kind of a love song.

What was the first thing you wrote for that song?

Well, the title. And then, as I was looking at the characters, I came up with the first line, the “once upon a time”. It used to be a long time ago, yet, if you dream it enough, all these stories, all these characters can be right here now. They don’t have to be something that you’re just reading about that happened a long time ago. You can meet them for real here at Disneyland. You can come to the park and here they are!

So, once I got the first line and the concept for the chorus, it almost wrote itself. It’s funny. I took my pen and it was just like somebody was whispering the song in my hear! Sometimes, it’s very difficult, you know, just to get little ideas here and there. It’s kind of like, if you get in a car and you’re just kind of driving around on a Sunday wondering: “where are going to go?”. Some songs are like that. And then, some songs are like you know exactly where you want to go and you go to your computer to get there. Every song is different.

For me, it’s almost like “how do you make friends”? Every person you meet, you create a friendship that’s different, which makes it fun. You never get stuck with always the same thing. You never get bored, that’s for sure!

From then on, how did you work on it?

Once you get even just the beginning seed of what it’s going to be, you have to create your own world of no distractions. So, sometimes I tend to turn off all the phones and work all hours of the night. I find it to be very effective just to focus and not stop. Sometimes, the main ideas come that way. Sometimes I emailed Katy (Harris, director of the parade) or Vasile (Sirli, musical director for the resort) at Disneyland Paris when it was two or three o’clock my time and it was their regular hours there!

So, actually, first, I just used my mind and my imagination. As I was writing the lyrics, the melody came to me. They came at the same time so that I could exactly match the second verse to the first verse. I’m very strict about matching the lyrics to the melody. Then, after I’m done with the lyrics, I went to the piano and figure out what the chords are going to be.

A lot of times, I can already hear them in my head, but I can experiment things on the piano and I’ve got a tape running the entire time to just capture what coming up. And then I go to recording, figuring out beats, what kind of groove it’s going to be. Figuring out the backup vocals is a lot of fun, too. I love doing that!

How did you shape the melody of the chorus, the famous “just like we dreamed it”?

I wanted it to be very much a celebration, a discovery. The verse is like a journey of figuring out that it doesn’t have to be something “a long time ago”, that all of these things that we love, characters that we love and places that we want to go are something that we can arrive, something where we can be whenever we want.

On one level, we can go to Disneyland whenever we want and on another level, we can just be what we want to be, just go where we want to go, and whatever we dream in our head, in our imagination, that’s going to come true in our live. So, I wanted to make the music of the chorus just burst like this. Boom! So, the melody had to go up, it had to burst up in the air.

So, that’s why I made it jump up a whole octave and just stay up there: “just like we dreeeeaaaamed it!”. It’s almost like the melody itself is flying and go wherever you want to make it a reality. I think it’s very important for a melody to tell the same story that the words are telling. It’s a wonderful puzzle to try to figure out and make that happen!

And how did you find the right melody for it?

Actually, we did some experiments with just dance and then more keyboard and then more guitar, kind of going back and forth with what we wanted it to be. Because it could have gone a lot of different ways. But Disney definitely wanted it to be pop and uptempo. There’s so many different kinds of pop now, and this was the groove and the flavour that they ended up wanting.

What did arranger Mario Marinangeli (Lizzie McGuire, Mickey’s Dance Party) bring to your song?

He actually added more of the California element in the way the guitars are structured and the overall vibe of the final product. He recorded all that in his studio. He did a wonderful job!

Speaking of Californian influence, what interests you in that style, since you come from Minnesota?

The city and the state are a land of dream in themselves. So many people come to Los Angeles with a big dream. There aren’t a lot of cities in the world where you can find that particular spirit. So many people come this city with a similar kind of dream of bringing their art form to the world. It’s a like a portal to learn how to do that. When you take college music, when you study music in school, so much is geared toward structure and counterpoint.

So, I learned counterpoint and I learned theory but there are so many things that are specific to pop music that are really not taught in college. Well, there are now, more so, now, especially out here. But California was the place to learn. There were seminars and workshops that were hard to find in a place like Minnesota. There was someone who came out to Minnesota to do a workshop and I learned so much that I just decided to go on there.

And there’s something about the energy of so many people having the same dream in the place, which is, interestingly, the same energy of being in Disneyland itself with everyone walking around in the same dream of having a wonderful day there. And I think it’s good for the song.

Did you sing the demo yourself?

Yes. At first, I just sang it “female”. Everything was female, but I wrote it in such a way where it could be a duet. Disney wanted it to be duet and ultimately we ended up making it that way. That’s something the writer has to keep in mind as you’re writing it because some songs can only work as a duet and others ones can only work with one singer. So, I kept in mind to keep options open.

Who did you work with at Disneyland Paris?

Katy Harris, the show director of the parade, and Vasile Sirli, the music director of the resort. I talked with both of them a lot about all this. They even flew to California as well. But we did a lot over the phone and through email at first. Katy, also, loves Winnie the Pooh so much!

How did she present Disney’s Once Upon a Dream Parade to you?

She made it such a wonderful experience because she sent me drawings of what the floats would look like and this is so helpful for writing. It’s almost like writing a song for movie, having a visual picture of what everyone is going to see going by. It’s such an important to achieve what she has in her imagination.

She also described what each float meant. She told me she wanted a song to tie everything together, because, for each float, there were going to have the classic beautiful songs that everyone knows for these characters. And they wanted a song that would tie everything together. The parade takes 25 minutes to go by wherever you’re standing, they wanted almost like a book end: something to start the parade and end the parade and maybe a little bit in the middle as well ; something that would tie all these classic Disney songs and classic Disney characters together. That was my job.

So, I ended up coming up with a little slow intro part to the song as well, which they loved and then ended up keeping as well. A kind of an invitation for everyone to come and experience the parade and have a little dream-like quality to it, almost like you’re waking up: “ooh!” And here it is!

And how did you work with Vasile Sirli?

He’s wonderful! He liked everything that I first submitted which is really fun for a songwriter to have that reaction, that they ended up using everything that I sent. And then, for the middle of the parade, what they call “show stop” when the parade stops, they wanted the characters to be able to come off of the floats and actually reach out and shake the hands of the children. So, they wanted a variation of the song for those moments.

For that part of it, we went back and forth with Vasile two of three times, messing with various ideas of how to break down the music. That was an interesting puzzle to figure out how long they were going to have the parade stopped. At first, it was intended to only be two minutes, but you can’t do an entire formulate song in two minutes. You have to cut off something. So, I would send them a version but they told me: “oh, we miss the bridge!” and then “oh, now we miss the verse!” So, they ended up with letting just go longer, and the show stops are 2 minutes and 40 seconds or something.

Disneyland Resort music director in California Bruce Healey was also involved in that process. Can you tell me about that?

Bruce came to the final recordings , for recording the final version. He was very helpful in figuring out which mixes and which sections to send. Because it’s so complicated putting together all the music for the whole parade. Once the song is written, then comes the whole process of putting it all together. You know, it was a world-wide process, with the orchestra recorded in London and all that. So, he was very helpful with the logistics of all that and helped me to pick the voices, too, because we wanted more opinions on the singers.

Indeed, how did you choose the singers for your song?

There was no live audition. It was by tape. So, a lot of people sent us their tapes . You know, some singers are wonderful singers, in hitting the notes and in their sound, but don’t have the right expression, that joy and enthusiasm. That’s a very special thing that you have to have for singing Disney songs that are so positive and happy. There’s so much on the radio that is negative that, when they demo things, they may only have songs like that on their reels and they don’t know how to sing about happiness.

So, one of the facts in choosing a singer was that they had to be able to come across with that happiness, that excitement and enthusiasm and the capacity to believe in what they’re actually singing. That’s how we chose Renee Sandstrom et Ruben Martinez.

You wrote a song about dreams. So, what would be your dream?

My dream is constant. It is to be able to move everyone who hears music that I write, move them to feel at home in this world and feel as they could be anything they want to be. For example, they can be as happy as they decide to be. I think that if everyone on earth were to think more positively, the entire world would be free of war, poverty and anything that keeps anyone down.

Just to think positively about our whole world and about our own self and our place in the world because everyone’s place in the world is a beautiful place. All we have to do is think of it that way!

I just try very, very much to inspire positive feelings and happiness through music. Music is a wonderful tool to be able to do that!

With all our thanks to Sunny Hilden!