Seminole High School’s chorus will be performing in Disney’s Candlelight Processional in Epcot again this December, as part of Epcot’s annual Holidays Around The World series.
The Candlelight Processional is an approximately 45-minute long performance including a mass choir, full orchestra, and celebrity narrators to tell the biblical story of Christmas. The shows are held throughout the month of December, and there are usually three different shows performed on each day that they are held, from evening to night. This year, students from SHS will perform in Candlelight on four different days.
It has been a tradition for the SHS chorus to participate in Candlelight every year, as they have under the direction of former Chorus teacher, Mr. Bob Maguire. In past years Mr. Maguire had trained and taken the students to perform. Ms. Lesa Boettcher, SHS’s new chorus teacher, is looking forward to this being her first year taking the choir to candlelight.
“I just want to see the whole processional and how everything goes. And I’m excited to see Sigourney Weaver and all the celebrities do the narration, and since it’ll be my first time it’ll be, for me, the first time to see everything together,” said Ms. Boettcher.
Candlelight is a professional performance, and Disney treats the students as professionals. The students are paid with tickets to the candlelight shows for performing, and they have to follow Disney’s specific requirements on how to look and how to present themselves.
“We have to follow all of the Disney rules, so we have to look exactly the way Disney wants us to look,” said Ms. Boettcher. “The white polos, the black pants, and Disney has very specific restrictions on hair and makeup, and jewelry. So physically the whole group has to look very uniform, and very Disney.”
Any students from the SHS chorus program as a whole can get involved in the candlelight performance. SHS has to send in a tape to Disney at the beginning of the year as their audition. Then the students in each class audition within the SHS chorus for a spot out of the specific number of singers that they are allowed to take each night. From the beginning of the year until the shows, the singers practice very hard to make sure that they know their music well and are as prepared as possible.
Senior Maclane Schirard has been performing in Candlelight for years.
“We learn the music, both in class and out of class, we rehearse a good part of the first semester in our class for the show, and we have to audition for spots on the stage,” said Schirard. “It’s a very rigorous process learning the music, especially your first time around.”
Not only does the chorus have to know their music extremely well, but they also have to prepare for the physical aspects of standing on stage and singing for the length of the entire show.
“We’re standing up there for a very long time under very hot lights and if people aren’t careful there’s always a couple people that pass out during the show,” said Schirard. “Whether it’s from what they ate, or nerves, or if they lock their knees. It gets pretty intense.”
Along with the SHS chorus, other high schools, colleges, independent groups, and Disney’s own paid singers perform in the Candlelight Processionals. Any mixed group containing both men and women is eligible to audition for a place in the mass choir.
For Allyssa Burgos, a junior in the SHS chorus, this is the first year that she will be performing in Candlelight.
“One thing I’m looking forward to is the experience to sing on stage,” said Burgos.
The SHS chorus continues to practice diligently as Disney’s Candlelight processionals draw closer, and grow in excitement for the special experience of performing as professionals on the Disney stage.