George Wilkins obit

Legendary Disney Parks Composer George Wilkins Passes Away at Age 90

The acclaimed composer provided scores and arrangements for a number of early EPCOT projects, such as Kitchen Kabaret, Listen to the Land and Horizons. 

He was not on the list.

Accomplished Disney Parks composer George Wilkins, known for composing a number of classic scores from Space Mountain to Food Rocks and Horizons, has sadly passed away at the age of 90.

The news of Wilkins’ passing was shared by Tammy Tuckey, the host of The Tammy Tuckey Show, which has hosted interviews with various Disney luminaries over the years, including Wilkins himself.

Born on March 14th, 1934, Wilkins got his start in the world of music in the 1950s as a backup singer and arranger for Patti Page. Heading into the 60s, Wilkins branched out into the world of composing, providing the scores for two Rankin/Bass productions – Return to Oz and The Wacky World of Mother Goose. Prior to his arrival at Disney, many of theme park scores were provided by the equally prolific Buddy Baker, and beginning in 1979, Baker took him on as a protégé.

Fans of classic EPCOT Center will likely be familiar with Wilkins’ initial work, as he arranged the music for a number of early attractions – including Kitchen Kabert, Listen to the Land, World of Motion and Journey to Imagination. One year after EPCOT’s opening, Wilkins’ first project as lead composer was the timeless and memorable score for Horizons, which he also arranged in its entirety. He would go on to provide work on a number of other EPCOT attractions over the years – including the main theme to The Living Seas, Food Rocks, Living with the Land and the original Test Track.

But EPCOT wasn’t the only Disney Park touched by Wilkins’ musical prowess, as he arranged a number of attractions heading into the 90s and 2000s – such as The Great Movie Ride, the 1993 version of Carousel of Progress, Roger Rabbit’s Car Toon Spin and Pooh’s Hunny Hunt. A personal highlight is music introduced in 1984 for Space Mountain at the Magic Kingdom, which still plays today as you enter the queue. Among Wilkins’ final compositions for Disney were California Screamin’, the full Sonny Eclipse show, It’s Tough To Be a Bug and the infamous Superstar Limo.

Wilkins retired from Disney following his final project in 2008, which was writing arrangements for Hong Kong Disneyland’s version of “it’s a small world.” Our thoughts are with George’s family at this time.

Wilkins got his start in the music industry as a backup vocalist and vocal arranger for Patti Page during the 1950s. In the 1960s, he also co-founded the vocal group the Doodletown Pipers. By this time, Wilkins broke out as a composer for film and television with his work on the Rankin/Bass productions of Return to Oz (1964) and The Wacky World of Mother Goose (1967).

In 1979, Wilkins joined The Walt Disney Company as a protégé to composer Buddy Baker, and was tasked with writing the arrangements for Listen to the Land and Kitchen Kabaret, but was thrust into the main composer for the new EPCOT Center park after Baker was involved in a car accident. Wilkins arranged several versions of the song "It's Fun to Be Free", for the World of Motion attraction, and arranged the Journey into Imagination ride music. After several arrangement opportunities, Wilkins was finally tasked with lead composing duties on the Horizons pavilion, after Disney show development head Randy Bright had rejected the Sherman Brothers' compositions for the ride. Wilkins composed the pavilion's area loop, as well as all on-ride music and audio cues.

Throughout his time at Disney, Wilkins acted as both a "Composer in Residence" at Walt Disney Productions as well as the Director of Music for Walt Disney Imagineering. Wilkins composed the music for the original song We've Come So Far for Space Mountain when RCA took over sponsorship for the pavilion in 1985, as well as an instrumental arrangement for the attraction's queue line, which remains installed in the attraction and can still be heard today. Wilkins was soon called back to work on EPCOT after being tasked with composing the soundscapes for the new Living Seas pavilion with Russell Brower. Wilkins did all arrangements for Food Rocks, and composed all score and audio cues for Test Track at EPCOT in the late 1990s.

Credits

Year     Title            Notes

1964    Return to Oz    TV movie, additional music

1967    The Wacky World of Mother Goose  Film

1982    Kitchen Kabaret            Vocal arrangements

1982    Listen to the Land            Orchestral arrangements.

1982    World of Motion            Arranged all alternate versions of It's Fun to Be Free for the queue line

1983    Journey into Imagination            Arranged ride soundtrack

1983            Horizons            Composed ride soundtrack, area loop, queue music, and post-show.

1984    All Because Man Wanted to Fly            Short film shown prior to Circle-Vision 360°

1984            Backstage Magic       

1984            Country Bear Christmas Special

1985    Space Mountain            Composed queue music and We’ve Come So Far

1986    The Living Seas            Co-written with Russell Brower.

1986            Country Bear Vacation Hoedown        

1986–1987            The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin            TV series

1989    Goofy About Health            Short film presented at the Wonders of Life pavilion

1994    Roger Rabbit's Car Toon Spin       

1994    Food Rocks 

1995    Sonny Eclipse An audio-animatronic music show located at Cosmic Ray's Starlight Cafe in Walt Disney World. Wilkins co-wrote the music with Kal David.

1998    The Enchanted Tiki Room (Under New Management)  

1998    It's Tough to Be a Bug!    

1998    Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin     with Randy Newman

1999    Test Track  

2001            California Screamin'            with Gary Hoey

2001            Superstar Limo           

2005    Buzz Lightyear Astro Blasters            with Randy Newman

2008    It's a Small World            Wrote all arrangements

2024    Le Pays des Contes de Fées            Wrote all arrangements