Walt Disney Studios welcomes new park music

From today, November 7th, your ears will receive a new magical soundtrack as you enter Walt Disney Studios Park at Disneyland Paris. Walt Disney Imagineering is introducing a new “overture”, featuring instrumental selections from many of the stories and adventures featured within the park. True to the production and moviemaking theme of the park, we will recognise some of our favourite film themes and scores from the Frozen and Toy Story movies to the epic Marvel films.

It may be subliminal or you could be tuned into it from the get-go, but music is one of the first elements to tingle your senses when you enter any Disney park. It is one of the true hallmarks of the Walt Disney Company, with songs and scores that are beloved by fans worldwide.

Now, as part of the ongoing transformation of the Walt Disney Studios Park, an instrumental refresh is being introduced as a way to invigorate the ambiance. Mike Fracassi, Senior Music Producer at Walt Disney Imagineering and creator of the original WDS music programs, tells us more about this new atmosphere created for La Place des Frères Lumière:

Can you lift the curtain a bit on the process of creating a new background music for the theme parks and your role in that process?

  

We first ask ourselves, how can music support the storytelling and emotion of the environment and experience?  What is the music supposed to accomplish and how do we want our guests to feel in the space?

When Tom Fitzgerald, Portfolio Creative Executive, and John Dennis, Executive Creative Director, asked me to work on the new background music program for Place des Frères Lumière, I was immediately excited, as I had put the original music programs together for the whole park back in 2002. It’s been a privilege to support the Paris parks all these years, and Walt Disney Studios Park was one of my first projects at Walt Disney Imagineering.

Tom had a good vision for what the music wanted to accomplish. From there I started pulling together music ideas and built out a playlist to review.

We then continued to refine the playlist selections and sequence to get it all working and it sounded good. One of our editors, Megan Duncan, did a great job shaping the sequence to get the different themes working well together.

Many stories have been brought to life throughout the years at Walt Disney Studios Park, how do you choose the right instrumental cues from these stories that will fit the mood you’re trying to create? 

The entrance plaza to the park is the first impression to our unique celebration of cinema at Walt Disney Studios Park. The park has grown and evolved with so many new stories and characters, it was time the entrance music reflected the Park of today… and with a peak into the future.

It’s an exciting and energetic overture to your experience, celebrating the characters and stories found in the park. We chose familiar and memorable themes to help build the anticipation and excitement of what awaits you on the other side of Disney Studio 1. On any given stroll through the Plaza, you may hear an endearing theme from a Disney or Pixar film, or an epic theme from a Marvel movie.

The park is going through an amazing transformation and we use music to bring our guests along for the journey.

What is your favorite track that you can’t wait to hear in the Park? 

That’s an unfair question!  There are so many great soundtrack themes in the new Plaza background music, but few are as invigorating as The Avengers.

Interview provided by Disneyland Paris InsidEars