Making Magic Happen

Ever been to Disneyland or the Disneyland Resort? If you’ve been fortunate enough to visit the “Happiest Place on Earth,” you know that music is at the core of the Disneyland experience. Everywhere you go, your sense of place and era is reinforced by carefully selected background and live music.

For more than a decade, the company that has provided the tools to make that magic happen is Yamaha. Disneyland is one of the largest employers of musicians in the world, and Yamaha outfits those players with professional grade instruments including drum sets, pianos, guitars — even the Disklavier that occupies the lobby of Disney’s Grand Californian Hotel and Spa. Yamaha mixing boards also help enhance the sound experience at many of the resort’s theaters and music venues, including the flagship Hyperion Theater, home to Disney’s “Frozen – Live at the Hyperion.”

As a further measure of the two companies’ unwavering support for music education, Yamaha also provides instruments and support for the prestigious Disneyland Resort All-American College Band, a 21-member ensemble selected from the top college-band students in the country, all of whom receive a world-class summer internship program.

Launched at Disneyland in 1971 and Walt Disney World in 1972, the All-American Band was designed to cultivate relationships between the Disneyland Resort and colleges and universities around the country. The collaboration between Disney and Yamaha allows the members of the AACB to excel in their musical careers, and in turn, inspires young children to explore the joys of making music.

For the past eleven years, Yamaha has hosted annual lunchtime concerts by the AACB on the front steps of Yamaha Corporation of America headquarters in Buena Park. On July 31, the AACB gave a rousing performance on Yamaha flutes, clarinets, saxophones, trumpets, flugelhorns, trombones, mellophones, tubas, horns, marching bass drums, and a Silent Bass — all to the delight of employees, children from the Boys and Girls Club of Buena Park and Mayor Virginia Vaughn.

“It was really exciting for the All-American College Band to perform at Yamaha,” exclaims Nathan Hatton, the ensemble’s 2018 teaching assistant. “We had so much fun performing several of our favorite tunes in such a different and unique setting!”

Photographs courtesy of Steve Leiken.

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