Farewell to My Favorite Composer

RIP George Wilkins

A little housekeeping note before I begin. It’s been way too long since I’ve posted here, and I apologize. It’s been a crazy busy year, although that’s a reason and not an excuse.

I’m planning on more content in the coming days, weeks, and months, including a couple of series that have been rattling around in my head. So stay tuned for great things to come…

The last time I saw the Horizons pavilion, 2000

I heard the news that my favorite Disney Parks composer passed away today. George Wilkins turned 90 this year, and the thought even crossed my mind a few weeks ago that he probably wasn’t long for this earth.

He wasn’t a household name, but he’s more than just a Disney composer to me. Although I love many great composers from Johann Sebastian Bach to Ludwig von Beethoven to Bedřich Smetana, and film and TV composers like John Williams, John Barry, and James Newton Howard composed music that resonates with me years after the films came out, George Wilkins holds a special place in my heart — and my ears.

I think of Wilkins as my all-time favorite composer.

Wilkins got his start arranging for Patti Page and composing for Rankin-Bass TV specials. But he was best known for his work with Disney, where he began working in 1979.

His biggest contributions to Disney were the arrangements and compositions for the early EPCOT Center attractions. When Buddy Baker, the legendary Disney composer, got in a car accident, the Imagineers called on Wilkins to handle the arrangements for World of Motion. He also arranged Richard and Robert Sherman’s music for Journey Into Imagination. He also did some composing and arranging for The Land pavilion.

Wilkins got his big shot composing the music for Horizons, the jewel in the crown of early EPCOT Center. His score beautifully encapsulates Walt Disney’s optimistic futurism on display at the Horizons attraction.

I listen to portions of the Horizons score — including “Pavilion Atmosphere” (above) — nearly every night as I go to bed. Most weeks at work, I listen to the entire Horizon's score after my regular playlist runs out. That’s how much that music means to me.

In 1985, Wilkins composed new music for the queue of Space Mountain, including a song for the attraction, “We’ve Come So Far.”

Wilkins shared composing duties on The Living Seas with Russell Brower, and he later wrote new arrangements for The Enchanted Tiki Room and the Country Bear Jamboree as well as composing for Disneyland in California and Disneyland Paris.

These days, you can hear Wilkins’ music at Buzz Lightyear’s Space Ranger spin and in the queue for Space Mountain.

We’ll surely miss George Wilkins, but we’ll always have his wonderful music — at least those of us who have recordings of it will.

Photo credit: Chris Queen