It’s an understatement to say it was a dream come true for Pentatonix’s Scott Hoying to write down and document the brand new tune “Nice Rainbow” for the seventieth anniversary of the Disneyland Resort.
The Grammy winner tells Billboard he’s a “Disney stan, deep down.” However Hoying didn’t cease with one tune: He might be heard all through the brand new Disney California Journey Park nighttime spectacular World of Color Happiness!, together with harmonizing on new renditions of acquainted Disney favorites like “I 2 I” (from A Goofy Film) and “No person Like U” (from Turning Crimson).
World of Colour Happiness! is a razzle-dazzle present that, per Disney, “explores glad by a kaleidoscope of feelings,” as instructed by visible projections on choreographed fountains enhanced with lighting, lasers, flames and naturally, a musical soundtrack.
The complete present, staged on Paradise Bay, is hosted by Pleasure and the opposite Feelings from the animated movie Inside Out 2, whereas a pre-show second kicks off with The Muppets – who, like Disneyland, have a good time their seventieth anniversary in 2025. (Within the present, Boyz II Males are heard singing The Muppets’ iconic tune “The Rainbow Connection.”) Then, following the present, Hoying’s hovering “Nice Rainbow” is heard in full whereas the fountains and lights within the Bay dance alongside to the tune. The observe was created by a military of greater than 100 musical people – together with an orchestra, choir and a workforce of manufacturing technicians and wizards.
A lot of the music from World of Colour Happiness!, together with “Nice Rainbow,” may also be discovered on the lately launched album from Walt Disney Information, Music From Disneyland Resort seventieth Celebration.
So what does it really feel like for Hoying to fairly actually be a part of a present at a Disney park, the place his voice is heard by visitors most each night time?
“I don’t even have the phrases to precisely clarify. It’s such a dream of mine. There’s movies of me at [age] 3 singing ‘I Simply Can’t Wait to Be King’ [from The Lion King] for anybody that may pay attention. I’m such a Disney stan, deep down. I do know the catalog by and thru.
“To assist create the soundtrack to such wonderful reminiscences that youngsters get to have – it’s only a dream,” he provides. “It offers me a way of objective and achievement that’s actually, actually significant.”
Hoying discovered his strategy to World of Colour Happiness! due to his work on Walt Disney World’s Epcot spectacular Luminous: The Symphony of Us. That present, which premiered in December 2023, featured a tune Hoying co-wrote (with A.J. Sealy and Sheléa, carried out by Sheléa) titled “Heartbeat Symphony.” Maybe surprisingly, the tune was chosen for the present in a “blind” audition, so to talk, the place the writers weren’t revealed through the preliminary choice course of.
Stef Fink – who was the music producer for Luminous and World of Colour Happiness! – invited Sealy and others to “blind submit” songs for Luminous. Sealy known as up Hoying (whom Fink didn’t know personally on the time), and the pair submitted a observe, which was among the many songs the Disney workforce initially chosen for consideration. Then, Sheléa teamed with Hoying and Sealy, and the three tinkered with the observe and added Sheléa’s vocals to the demo, and Disney finally chosen the tune for the present.
So when it got here time for World of Colour Happiness! to start manufacturing, the connection Hoying and Fink had constructed with Luminous graduated to a brand new degree. Figuring out that World of Colour Happiness! was going to be a “extra vocal-forward and a extra pop-forward present,” Fink considered bringing Hoying into the artistic course of. “I wish to encompass myself with people who find themselves smarter and musically higher than I’m, so I used to be like, ‘Scott, what are you doing?’”
On this present, Scott “stepped into so many various roles creatively, by himself and alongside me,” Fink says. “He’s not only a singer on the present and he’s not only a vocal arranger – he actually knowledgeable a whole lot of our enjoyable selections, together with our unbelievable artistic director Steve Davison and our complete workforce over at Disney Stay Leisure.”
The artistic synergy between Fink and Hoying prolonged to the brand new tune “Nice Rainbow,” which the pair wrote and produced collectively, with Hoying singing the observe alongside an orchestra and choir.
Recording the tune with a stay orchestra was “the most effective components of the entire expertise and why I’ve a lot respect for the Disney Music workforce, as a result of they don’t reduce corners,” Hoying says, stressing the lengths Disney will go to for authenticity and accuracy of their music manufacturing.
“It’s so cool to work on a challenge that has a lot integrity for music. … I don’t get to document with an orchestra fairly often – clearly, Pentatonix is a cappella – and it was so magical. As magical as you’d suppose it’d be. I used to be simply bawling [in the studio] to the purpose the place I used to be like, ‘All proper, it’s form of cute to cry for a second, however now it’s form of getting loopy.’ [Laughs] I used to be simply so moved. It was essentially the most stunning factor I ever heard.
“And the idea of the present is about connection, and to see 70 individuals who all devoted their life to their instrument come collectively and play an association that I labored on and so they cherished to play, and it made this stunning sound… and I used to be like, ‘People, we’re all related!’ I used to be simply in my feels and simply going by it. It was simply magical.”