By Wayne Laepple
MILTON — For 68 members of the Milton Area High School chorus, Saturday marks the end of incessant fund-raising and the beginning of an eight-day adventure to Florida’s Walt Disney World and Epcot Center.
The chorus will perform twice during a Christmas candlelight procession Dec. 3 at Epcot Center.
“We had to audition with Disney in early September,” chorus director Russ Wynn said. “They sent us the music and we had to learn it and perform on a DVD we sent back to them.”
Once the Milton group was accepted for the performances, it had learn 15 pieces. It will be in a mass performance of more than 200 students from a number of high schools.
“The Hallelujah Chorus was the hardest piece to do,” senior Brian Snyder said. “It takes a huge amount of energy to perform.”
Wynn has been working the students hard, rehearsing the repertoire from 11:45 a.m. to 12:40 p.m. daily.
“It’s a huge undertaking,” he said. “There was such a short time for us to learn these pieces.”
Wynn said he saw a Disney candlelight procession several years ago during a Thanksgiving visit to the Magic Kingdom with his family.
“I thought it would be cool if we could do that,” he said.
Soon after Wynn decided to take the chorus to Florida last year, the fund raising began.
“We sold everything, from wrapping paper and gift items to cookie dough, Aunt Annie’s pretzels, pizzas, pies and poinsettias,” he said. The total raised was more than $60,000, he said, to insure that every member of the chorus would have the opportunity to go.
This year, he completed the application and sent it to Disney, which then sent the audition materials.
The chorus members, plus eight chaperones, will leave Milton at 7 p.m. Saturday on two chartered buses. They will travel straight through to Orlando, arriving Nov. 29.
When they aren’t rehearsing or performing, the Milton students will take in the scenery and events.
“I want to meet Mickey,” senior Matt Ishman said.
Junior Kari Radke has already had that pleasure, she said, noting that she had met all the Disney characters on a previous trip.
“We’ll go swimming and have fun,” she said.
Most of the members of the chorus haven’t visited Orlando before, Wynn said.
“There’s a lot of excitement,” he said. “I hear them talking about what to take and what rides they want to go on.”
Wynn said the Milton group will stay in a motel in Kissimmee, a suburb of Orlando.
“I didn’t want to stay on the Disney campus, where the students would have access to Disney transportation around the clock,” he said. “I want to control that.”
The group will leave for Milton on Dec. 4, arriving home on the afternoon of Dec. 5.
The Milton chorus will perform most of the music it learned for the Disney trip at a public concert in the high school’s performing arts center at 2:30 p.m. Dec. 13.
