Disneyland
It’s an understatement to say it was a dream come true for Pentatonix’s Scott Hoying to write and record the new song “Great Rainbow” for the 70th anniversary of the Disneyland Resort.
The Grammy winner tells Billboard he’s a “Disney stan, deep down.” But Hoying didn’t stop with one song: He can be heard throughout the new Disney California Adventure Park nighttime spectacular World of Color Happiness!, including harmonizing on new renditions of familiar Disney favorites like “I 2 I” (from A Goofy Movie) and “Nobody Like U” (from Turning Red).
World of Color Happiness! is a razzle-dazzle show that, per Disney, “explores happy through a kaleidoscope of emotions,” as told through visual projections on choreographed fountains enhanced with lighting, lasers, flames and of course, a musical soundtrack.
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The entire show, staged on Paradise Bay, is hosted by Joy and the other Emotions from the animated film Inside Out 2, while a pre-show moment kicks off with The Muppets – who, like Disneyland, celebrate their 70th anniversary in 2025. (In the show, Boyz II Men are heard singing The Muppets’ iconic tune “The Rainbow Connection.”) Then, following the show, Hoying’s soaring “Great Rainbow” is heard in full while the fountains and lights in the Bay dance along to the tune. The track was created by an army of more than 100 musical individuals – including an orchestra, choir and a team of production technicians and wizards.
Much of the music from World of Color Happiness!, including “Great Rainbow,” can also be found on the recently released album from Walt Disney Records, Music From Disneyland Resort 70th Celebration.
So what does it feel like for Hoying to quite literally be part of a show at a Disney park, where his voice is heard by guests most every night?
“I don’t even have the words to accurately explain. It is such a dream of mine. There’s videos of me at [age] 3 singing ‘I Just Can’t Wait to Be King’ [from The Lion King] for anyone that would listen. I am such a Disney stan, deep down. I know the catalog through and through.
“To help create the soundtrack to such amazing memories that kids get to have – it’s just a dream,” he adds. “It gives me a sense of purpose and fulfillment that’s really, really meaningful.”
Hoying found his way to World of Color Happiness! thanks to his work on Walt Disney World’s Epcot spectacular Luminous: The Symphony of Us. That show, which premiered in December 2023, featured a song Hoying co-wrote (with A.J. Sealy and Sheléa, performed by Sheléa) titled “Heartbeat Symphony.” Perhaps surprisingly, the song was selected for the show in a “blind” audition, so to speak, where the writers were not revealed during the initial selection process.
Stef Fink – who was the music producer for Luminous and World of Color Happiness! – invited Sealy and others to “blind submit” songs for Luminous. Sealy called up Hoying (whom Fink did not know personally at the time), and the pair submitted a track, which was among the songs the Disney team initially selected for consideration. Then, Sheléa teamed with Hoying and Sealy, and the three tinkered with the track and added Sheléa’s vocals to the demo, and Disney ultimately selected the song for the show.
So when it came time for World of Color Happiness! to begin production, the relationship Hoying and Fink had built with Luminous graduated to a new level. Knowing that World of Color Happiness! was going to be a “more vocal-forward and a more pop-forward show,” Fink thought of bringing Hoying into the creative process. “I like to surround myself with people who are smarter and musically better than I am, so I was like, ‘Scott, what are you doing?’”
On this show, Scott “stepped into so many different roles creatively, by himself and alongside me,” Fink says. “He’s not just a singer on the show and he’s not just a vocal arranger – he really informed a lot of our fun decisions, along with our incredible creative director Steve Davison and our entire team over at Disney Live Entertainment.”
The creative synergy between Fink and Hoying extended to the new song “Great Rainbow,” which the pair wrote and produced together, with Hoying singing the track alongside an orchestra and choir.
Recording the song with a live orchestra was “one of the best parts of the whole experience and why I have so much respect for the Disney Music team, because they don’t cut corners,” Hoying says, stressing the lengths Disney will go to for authenticity and accuracy in their music production.
“It’s so cool to work on a project that has so much integrity for music. … I don’t get to record with an orchestra very often – obviously, Pentatonix is a cappella – and it was so magical. As magical as you’d think it’d be. I was just bawling [in the studio] to the point where I was like, ‘All right, it’s kind of cute to cry for a second, but now it’s kind of getting crazy.’ [Laughs] I was just so moved. It was the most beautiful thing I ever heard.
“And the concept of the show is about connection, and to see 70 people who all dedicated their life to their instrument come together and play an arrangement that I worked on and they loved to play, and it made this beautiful sound… and I was like, ‘Humans, we’re all connected!’ I was just in my feels and just going through it. It was just magical.”
Kourtney Kardashian and Travis Barker hosted a lavish Disney-themed baby shower over the weekend, complete with custom Baby Barker latte art, a Dapper Dans appearance, and Mikey Mouse ears galore. “Special day, happiest place on Earth,” Kardashian captioned an Instagram Story of The Dapper Dans — Disneyland’s resident barbershop quartet — performing a pitch-perfect rendition […]
Walt Disney Records’ new Disney 100 album launches at No. 1 on both Billboard’s Compilation Albums and Kid Albums charts (dated May 13). The 29-track multi-artist set, boasting familiar Disney favorites from decades of film, TV and theme park attractions, is part of the ongoing celebration of 100 years of the Walt Disney Company.
Disney 100 was released on April 28 and exclusively available as a vinyl release (a two-LP set priced at $34.98). In the tracking week ending May 4, it sold a little over 2,000 copies in the United States, according to Luminate.
Disney 100 includes previously released songs from Disney’s films, TV programs and theme parks. Among the selections: “Whistle While You Work” (from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs), “When You Wish Upon a Star” (from Pinocchio), “Tiki, Tiki, Tiki Room” (from the Disney Parks attraction Walt Disney’s Enchanted Tiki Room), “It’s a Small World” (from the attraction of the same name), “Mickey Mouse March” (from The Mickey Mouse Club), “We’re All In This Together” (from High School Musical), “Under the Sea” (from The Little Mermaid), “Let It Go” (from Frozen) and the No. 1 Billboard Hot 100 hit “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” (from Encanto).
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The Disney 100 celebration continues at No. 2 on both Kid Albums and Compilations, as a 23-song Walmart-exclusive alternative edition of the Disney 100 debuts (2,000 sold). The Walmart variant, also only on vinyl LP, has the same title but a different tracklist than the general market edition at No. 1, and thus it charts separately.
The wide-release Disney 100 and the Walmart-exclusive iteration also debut at Nos. 60 and 62 on the Top Album Sales chart, respectively, and at Nos. 31 and 33 on the Top Current Album Sales chart.
The Disney 100 albums are one part of Disney’s company-wide celebrations, which includes festivities in Disney Parks and Disney100: The Exhibition at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, among other activations.
Billboard’s Kid Albums and Compilation Albums charts ranks the week’s top-selling children’s albums and all-genre compilations, respectively. Top Album Sales rank the week’s overall top-selling albums, and Top Current Album Sales lists the week’s top-selling current albums (excluding any older, catalog titles – generally those that are at least 18 months old).
As moonlight illuminates Disneyland Park’s Main Street, U.S.A., toddlers are gleefully hoisted onto shoulders, young couples nestle under Mickey Mouse blankets and groups of teenagers buzz with excitement. The mix of generations represented here have at least one thing in common: A real love for Disney’s creations.
The crowd is awaiting “Wondrous Journeys,” the park’s new nighttime event celebrating 100 years of Disney magic. In the span of a 15-minute, firework-filled spectacular, every milestone of the storytelling giant’s century-long history is projected onto the exterior of Main Street U.S.A. and the Sleeping Beauty Castle – from the first sketch of Mickey Mouse in 1927 to Disney’s upcoming 2023 film, Wish.
The display features nods to every Walt Disney Animation Studios film, coupled with lighting effects, fireworks and even Baymax from Big Hero 6, who at one point soars above the castle. It’s all set to a star-studded soundtrack arranged by Grammy Award-winning composer Christopher Lennertz, which features re-imaginings of Disney classics like “When You Wish Upon a Star” fused seamlessly with songs from modern-day films including “Almost There” from Princess and the Frog and “Dos Oruguitas” from Encanto.
“When the team sat down, we realized that the core theme that binds everyone together when it comes to emotion, is music,” says Walt Disney Imagineering’s global head of music Tricia Holloway.
The first step in developing the show’s music component was putting together an acoustic blueprint for what would become the “Wondrous Journeys” soundtrack. “I really approached this project like a combination of a stage musical and animated feature,” says Lennertz. “I wanted the music to be precisely clear about telling our story, with motivated singing and lyrics, but also be joyous, vivid, and colorful, like the great animated art that we were paying tribute to.”
Once the 18-song piano and vocal demo was thoroughly reviewed by Disney’s team, including show director and creative music producer Jordan Peterson, it came time to decide who would perform each track. “We started brainstorming [and] put together a list of vocalists that we thought would help inspire the show and take it to another level,” says Holloway. “As we were looking to cast the vocalists, we were looking to people who perform in front of a live audience so that they could bring that energy and storytelling to the delivery of their vocals.”
In addition to more musical theater-centric acts suggested by her colleagues, Holloway threw a number of recording artists into the mix — reflective of her 20 years as a music supervisor in film and television at companies like Lionsgate and Nickelodeon. Through a combination of outreach to managers, agents and contractors, the soundtrack became a perfect blend of vocalists across musical disciplines, including Tarriona “Tank” Ball from Tank and the Bangas, Tony Award winner Lena Hall, jazz and soul singer Shoshana Bean, Ty Taylor from Los Angeles soul-rock band Vintage Trouble and pop duo Clyde and Gracie Lawrence.
“Being a part of Disney’s Wondrous Journeys was a dream come true,” says Ball, who, along with Taylor, jokingly referred to herself as “Disney royalty” after watching the show for the first time.
Hall, who performed “Immortal” from Big Hero 6, says she was “thrilled” when asked to be a part of the project. “I’m no Disney princess, so I thought it was cool they wanted to bring some real rock vocals to the show,” she says.
The “Wondrous Journeys” score was recorded over the course of a year across California, Nashville, New York City, London and Orlando, with an 80-piece orchestra, 16 lead vocalists and a 33-member choir. One of the elements Holloway is most excited about is the spectacular’s original opening song, “It’s Wondrous.”
When the Disney team received the track — originally a demo from songwriters Alex Ganga and Danny Brown — they loved the rendition so much that they opted to keep the demo vocalists for the final song. “It’s a folk-pop approach, bringing a different style than you typically would hear in the parks, something that you’d want to hear outside of the parks on its own,” says Holloway of the song.
Now, fans can hear “It’s Wondrous” whenever they want, as the track arrived on streaming platforms Friday (March 3).
“I think ‘It’s Wondrous’ is going to become part of the DNA of the Disney catalog,” Holloway says. “It isn’t from an actual film or character, but it captures the feeling and beauty that you find within all the animation films.”
Rebel Wilson is engaged.
The actress and fashion and jewelry designer Ramona Agruma became engaged after a proposal that took place at Disneyland. Wilson posted the news on Instagram on Sunday.
“We said YES! 💗💗 Thank you @tiffanyandco for the stunning ring 💍 and to Bob Iger and the incredible team at Disneyland @disneyweddings for pulling off this magical surprise!” she wrote.
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Wilson shared two photos in her post. The couple are wearing matching pink-and-white striped sweaters with a black heart on the front. One photo shows Agruma’s engagement ring, while the other shows them with Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty castle in the background.
Wilson and Agruma first revealed they were a couple in June 2022. At the time, Wilson posted a photo on Instagram with the caption: “I thought I was searching for a Disney Prince… but maybe what I really needed all this time was a Disney Princess 💗🌈💗#loveislove”
Wilson welcomed her first child, daughter Royce, via surrogate in November.
The Pitch Perfect actress also recently launched a dating app, Fluid.
“This is the first dating app where you don’t have to actually define yourself or tick a box to say ‘I’m straight, I’m gay, I’m bisexual,’ and you don’t have to describe what you are looking for,” she told People of her new venture. “It’s kind of love with no labels.”
This article originally appeared in THR.com.
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