by Beth Keating
Review
DisneyBizJournal.com
October 20, 2019
Back in May, I fell in love with a piano player who had just released his video of “Happily Ever After,” the amazing fireworks and projections show at Magic Kingdom.
Gijs Van Winkelhof, a self-taught pianist from the Netherlands, recorded the complete soundtrack to “Happily Ever After,” and, through the magic of greenscreen, uploaded it so that the real “Happily Ever After” fireworks show plays behind him. His performance is completely in synch with the actual show.
Never having had formal piano lessons and without using any sheet music, this incredible musician and composer performs a number of Disney pieces for his viewers (listeners?). (He credits The DIS for the very professional video of “Happily Ever After” playing on screen.) As if his piano-playing skills were not awesome enough, Gijs can’t share his sheet music with fellow musicians because he learned, and plays, the music astonishingly by ear.
This past week, Gijs uploaded the nostalgic and since departed “Wishes” show from the Magic Kingdom. (Technically, the entire show is called “Wishes: A Magical Gathering of Disney Dreams,” but most fans just despondently mourn it as “Wishes.”
The footage playing in the background is also from The DIS, and was recorded at “Wishes” final performance in 2017.) Gijs arrangement is stunningly beautiful, and I could listen to it over and over.
Gijs Music offers other musical performances, including an earlier Star Wars arrangement. I’m now addicted to Gijs Van Winkelhof’s music, and his magic might just hit you the same way.
Beth Keating is a regular contributor to DisneyBizJournal.
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