Disney Parks composer George Wilkins passed away on November 9, 2024, at the age of 90.
Tammy Tuckey, host of “The Tammy Tuckey Show” who interviewed and befriended Wilkins, shared the news on X.
Wilkins started his music career in the 1950s as a backup vocalist and arranger for Patti Page. He co-founded The Doodletown Pipers vocal group with Bernie Brillstein and Jerry Weintraub. He composed music for “Return to Oz” (1964), “The Wacky World of Mother Goose” (1967), and “The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin” (1986).
Wilkins joined Walt Disney Productions in 1979 as the protégé to composer Norman “Buddy” Baker, who was in charge of composing the music for EPCOT. Wilkins got started by arranging the music for “Kitchen Kabarat” and the song “Symphony of the Seed” for Listen to the Land (the precursor to Living With the Land). When Baker was called away to compose the score for “The Fox and the Hound,” Wilkins became the music director for EPCOT in 1981.
Wilkins arranged the music for World of Motion, including the song “It’s Fun to Be Free.” He arranged the background music for Journey into Imagination and composed the Electronic Philharmonic music for ImageWorks. He composed the ride and area music for Horizons, including the song “New Horizons.” He arranged “Golden Dreams” for the park’s entrance music and later composed the new version for The American Adventure.
Staying on as a composer and music director with Walt Disney Imagineering after EPCOT opened, Wilkins composed the music for “We’ve Come So Far,” the famous “Star Tunnel” song of Space Mountain at Magic Kingdom. He arranged music for the “Country Bear Christmas Special,” which opened at Magic Kingdom and Disneyland in 1984 and now runs seasonally at Tokyo Disneyland as the “Country Bear Jingle Bell Jamboree.” He also arranged the music for the summer overlay, “Country Bear Vacation Hoedown,” which opened a few years later.
Wilkins arranged music for The Great Movie Ride, the Muppet*Vision 3D queue, Le Pays des Contes de Fees (Storybook Land Canal Boats) at Disneyland Paris, the 1993 version of Carousel of Progress, Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin, The Enchanted Tiki Room (Under New Management), and Pooh’s Hunny Hunt at Tokyo Disneyland. He composed the songs of Sonny Eclipse in Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe at Magic Kingdom. He also composed music for The Living Seas, Living With the Land, It’s Tough to Be a Bug!, Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger Spin, Test Track, California Screamin’, Superstar Limo, and Journey Into Imagination with Figment.
His final project was writing arrangements for “it’s a small world” at Hong Kong Disneyland in 2008. He then retired from Disney.
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