Orcas HS musicians return from a 6-day trip to Disneyland

||| FROM QUIN WILDMAN-GOSSETT |||

Quin Wildman-Gossett with his favorite soft drink, Duff.

For the small size of the Orcas public schools music program, they get an astonishing amount of support. Composing typically around twenty students, this is the bottom end of the average size of school band and orchestras ranging from twenty all the way up to two hundred. Despite this small size, the musicians experience numerous trips and adventures attributed to groups of a much larger size. Of these is a nearly all expenses paid, six day trip to DisneyLand California! 

Now I say “nearly” because the cost depends largely on donations, leading the amount that students need to pay to fluctuate year to year. The individual cost can range from free to over a grand, but thankfully they only paid in gratitude this time. What this trip entails is hours of fun to spend in the park each day, performing classic Disney music live to the public, and working personally with a real and true Disney director! Since my knowledge of the trip is limited, I was curious to learn more. So I asked the Orcas Island High School Orchestra director Mrs. Pamela Wright, “When and why did this start?” and she responded

Wright– “This event started in 2013 when I was speaking with my music colleges in the region. Sedro Woolley’s teacher was putting together a trip and I asked to have our students involved. Sedro needed to partner up with another school because Disney requires at least 20 students on the stage for performance. And both of us being a small school made this work, 

We went to Disney in 2014 and 2016. We had the trip planned and paid for for 2020, but we all know what happened there.”

This experience is obviously quite a wonderful thing for the students, but a big wall to overcome is the cost. To work around this, the classes organize fundraisers in the community using a couple different methods. Here is some insight and examples from Mr. Dix and Mrs Wright

Dix– “We have done benefit concerts, practice-a-thons, hoop shoots, busking, bake sales, catalog sales, and general donation requests. It varies student to student, but if they are invested in the trip, I tend to see them much more invested in fundraising.” 

Wright– “The first year the parents and students put on a spaghetti dinner and concert at the community church. We raised well over $2000 at that concert and then MAG gave us $2000 for food that year. The Practice-A-Thon is a major fundraiser. We also received a large Grant this year of 20K from people that support the Arts. Lisa and Emi Carter and Paris Wilson, Joanne Mietzner and Emily Toombs from previous years.”

It’s hard not to fill this article full of me gushing over how much I adore this trip, so before I share my account, I think It best to give light to the opinions of Mr. Dix and Mrs. Wright as I asked

       “Why is this trip Important? How is it good for the students?

Dix– “This trip not only provides students the opportunity to perform at Disney to an international audience, but also provides a real life experience of what it is like to be a professional studio musician. I feel it is important to showcase to students what possibilities they have post high school, and give them real life experiences to help them better understand what that could look like. The students benefit by having a trip where they are responsible for budgeting, professional performance, and understanding what it is like to live or be in a much more populated environment.”

Wright– “This trip is important for education purposes as well as an amazing bonding experience for these music ensembles. To be able to perform at Disney and to be able to go backstage into the music studio and learn about studio musicians and the life that they have is pretty cool. We wear Headphones and listen to a click track that is measured perfectly with the movie that the musicians play behind the movie. We get to do that!”

Being a band student myself, I was lucky enough to take part in this amazing journey. So to round up this article, I thought to share my experience with you all. It started early in the morning, as most ferry trips do, as we made our way to the hotel to get up bright and early the next morning to catch our flight (apparently Alaska Airlines has a problem with hyphenated names. Who knew?). Touching down in California we headed straight to Universal Studios and wow was that an experience! Riding through Jurassic World on a rollercoaster, walking through the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, and trying a can of Duff (my personal favorite) are some of the things that stick out to me. Though let’s get to the main reasons for going, the performance and the Disney director. For the performance, we practiced a handful of classic Disney music during the weeks leading up to the trip. For the performance itself we were all led to a backstage area in Disneyland where we dressed in our suits and walked out into the park to the stage. The actual venue felt pretty casual, and with the small groups of park goers stopping by to listen, it was a great time.

Depicted is the Hogwarts castle at Universal

Although the performance was fun, the real gem of the trip was working with the Disney director.

The building tension while we waited to enter the studio was intense. As we entered the room you could immediately feel the professional quality of everything around. Headphones set on each music stand, we sat in wait for the day to begin. We opened with a projected video introduction and later was introduced to the director. Right away we started sight reading and experienced first hand instruction, and once he felt we were ready we recorded the song and saw it play along with a scene from a movie. It was surreal to hear us playing in these films we grew up with, and before long the four hours blew past and we were done.

Over all, I am blown away at just how wonderful this trip turned out to be. Not only is it crazy that such a small school can pull off something of this magnitude, but the impact it will have on the students is immense and I can’t thank them enough.

Lastly to round off this article, I wanted to emphasize the power our community has in being able to provide for these kids. And so had Mr. Dix and Mrs. Wright answer these two questions,       

       “How does the community impact this event?

Dix– “The community impacts this event in that we depend on community fundraising to be able to bring as many students as possible. What the community receives in return is students who have experienced a huge bonding adventure and performance opportunity that they may otherwise never experience.”

        “How can someone support the music program?”

Dix– “There are many ways to show support to the music program: being an audience member at performances, being an advocate for music education, any type of financial donation.”

Wright– ”The music program can be supported through the Music Advocacy Group, OIEF, and donations to the Disney ASB account for years to come.”

Thank you for reading, this is the first article I have written and I hope you enjoyed it.