I've heard these arrangements. I've sung these arrangements.
But from off the side of the stage, near one of the huge fire torches that surround World Showcase lagoon, at about torch #9, some wonderful difference in the music caught my attention and I looked up.
From that point, waiting in line for the next show, I tried to figure out among the chatter and my people watching, without a good eyeline toward the stage, what was different about this night. Yes the lights twinkled off the lake and the breeze was slightly cool and the night was perfect. Yes the choir was all there and the Disney magic was working its wonders with the greatest story ever told. But I've been here before. What was different about last night?
I realized it was the conductor.
I have been intimately familiar with the music of Epcot's Candlelight Processional at Walt Disney World since the early 1980s. Rock Hudson was about to become a national celebrity again, but we were just high school students and he was just a guest narrator hamming it up for us in a big warehouse way behind Pirates of the Caribbean and I was just glad to be behind the scenes at the happiest place on earth.
The Candlelight Processional has been doing its thing since the 1950s at Disneyland. And here I was, a small part of it with my battery operated candle in the same building where floats hide until they can become part of the Electrical Light Parade once the magic needs to be kicked up a notch when darkness descends over the Magic Kingdom.
Since then, I've seen many performances at Epcot. This one was my third this week. Over the years I've seen it many times and like to list the celebrities I've heard read the story. I always try to figure out who was the best, as if a reading from the Bible or the recitation of One Solitary Life (not a part of the show this year) should be taken as a contest. I think it was Ashley Judd. Yep, even with her namaste bows to the crowd she was probably the best. She was so sincere. Jim Caviezel may have been more sincere, but I think she was just better. He gets the prize for most exuberance. He could hardly hold back. Maybe he meant it more than most, or not, but he did a great job too. This is high praise for both of them considering the amount of star power I've been exposed to narrating this same show. It's a company of high quality- much better than Circus of the Stars or its Dancing update.
Congratulations Chris Confessore, the conductor, for putting the finishing touches on the music in such a way that I actually noticed the conductor for once. It's always professional and it's always very good. I'm not sure exactly what you did differently, but I noticed it before I heard your name or realized that we had been students of The Florida State University School of Music (now the College) at the same time.
Epcot's Candlelight Processional takes place under the stars with a wonderful set of carols and other Christmas songs featuring choir and orchestra in masterful arrangements that are simple and utterly good. You have to hear how the men and women alternate in What Child Is This? just a little unexpectedly, with phrases of various lengths taking the simple melody to its height. It's indicative of the whole show. It's a crystalline distillation of the genre that is nearly perfect. And every once in awhile a leaf falls from the trees above and startles an audience member. Kids stand up and sway with abandon and play orchestra conductor spontaneously. Generally parents let them as they're too tired to worry about their reputations at the end of a long walking day. Maybe the parents are enraptured with the sound, or too tired to protest. It's a great venue. The lighting may be the best feature of the show because unless you've been there many times, you don't even notice its intricacy.
If you don't know Jesus, this show is a nice introduction. The lady next to me the day before yesterday simply stopped watching for a moment, put up her hand in quiet praise and spoke to Him for a minute in the middle of the show.
Last night, the orchestra was having so much fun that every once in awhile they slipped- sorry brass section for calling you out, but you sounded great, not perfect- as they would if they were playing like they meant it. At FSU once, a student asked Robert Shaw which was better in a musician, technical proficiency or emotional connection. He said they were the same thing.
I don't think that's true. And it's not just because I've never been technically proficient. I'm very glad to have heard the same music, a little differently last night. It was wonderful.
It was Disney.
It gave us a glimpse of the truth behind the glitter.
Thank you Chris.
Here is a man who was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in another village. He worked in a carpenter shop until He was thirty. Then for three years He was an itinerant preacher.
He never owned a home. He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family. He never went to college. He never put His foot inside a big city. He never traveled two hundred miles from the place He was born. He never did one of the things that usually accompany greatness. He had no credentials but Himself...
While still a young man, the tide of popular opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. One of them denied Him. He was turned over to His enemies. He went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed upon a cross between two thieves. While He was dying His executioners gambled for the only piece of property He had on earth – His coat. When He was dead, He was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.
Nineteen long centuries have come and gone, and today He is a centerpiece of the human race and leader of the column of progress.
I am far within the mark when I say that all the armies that ever marched, all the navies that were ever built; all the parliaments that ever sat and all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of man upon this earth as powerfully as has that one solitary life.
This essay was adapted from a sermon by Dr James Allan Francis in “The Real Jesus and Other Sermons” © 1926 by the Judson Press of Philadelphia (pp 123-124 titled “Arise Sir Knight!”). If you are interested, you can read the original version .
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