Want culture? Be my guest.

 In my effort to glean as much culture as I can while I am in D.C., I made a point to find some cultural stuff to experience, in addition to the amazing lot of historical and/or touristy stuff.

“Little Shop of Horrors” was my excuse to visit Ford’s Theater and I also went to a Mark Twain play in Alexandria. With the number of venues here, I couldn’t see something at every one, but I absolutely wanted to get to the Kennedy Center.

Since I couldn’t afford “Bye Bye Birdie” – those tickets are close to $200 – I scrolled forever on their site to find something and finally landed on it: Disney in Concert.

“The Sound Of Magic is a one-of-a-kind musical and visual celebration of the beautiful stories told by the music in Walt Disney Animation Studios and Disney Theme Park's iconic settings.” That’s the blurb from the Kennedy Center website and the totality of what I knew I was getting for. I really had no idea.

Oh my, it was utterly fabulous. I had assumed it was some kind of touring show, but it was a performance by the National Symphony Orchestra. How would I have known that? I didn’t know there was a National Symphony Orchestra. But there is, and the conductor, Christopher Dragon, let us through two hours and 100 years of music.

Here’s what the NSO page says about the show:

“Your favorite characters and soundtracks from the Walt Disney Animation Studios and Disney Parks come to life on the Concert Hall stage and big screen in a live-to-film concert like never before. Performed live by the National Symphony Orchestra, this new concert takes you on a magic carpet ride through the most memorable song, score, and movie moments of the first 100 years of The Walt Disney Company, including Peter Pan, Moana, Aladdin, The Jungle Book, Frozen, The Lion King, Fantasia, Encanto, Disney Parks classics, and more.”

My seats were high up on the second level, so I had a great view but I couldn’t for the life of me figure out the string section. It seemed the majority of the orchestra was strings, which included an electric guitar. The brass section had three trumpets, four trombones, a tuba and four French horns – unless I missed something. The percussion section had cymbals, bells, the whole nine yards.

And behind them, there was a giant screen. Essentially, it was like watching a fabulous mélange of Disney clips – not just from the movies, but also from sketches and narrations from Walt himself – with the orchestra performing the music live.

I cannot imagine the effort put into it, but it was absolutely worth it. I tried to imagine synching even a tape player up with a TV set. That’s hard enough, but this was live. Every crash on the screen – whether from Ariel’s transformation, Simba getting caught up in a stampede or Moana setting sail – was met with some kind of musical punch, and every one was spot on.

Of course the opening included “When You Wish Upon A Star,” and after the introduction, the orchestra swung into “Be Our Guest.” But other than those two slam-dunk inclusions, I have no idea how they whittled down a century’s worth of music to a two-hour event. The selection was interesting, because there were some songs I hadn’t heard of and some blockbusters weren’t included, like “Into the Jungle.” (Not that I wasn’t OK with that decision – last thing I needed was to have that song going through my head the rest of the day.)

The video clips really did go back 100 years, with Snow White just one of the older ones featured. Heck, they even had clips of Todd from The Fox and the Hound, a favorite of mine.

So many films figured in, in some way or another. And while I knew most of the songs, there were some that I never heard of, like “God Help the Outcasts.” I never saw The Hunchback of Notre Dame. There were also a couple of recent ones – I could tell from the animation – that I had absolutely no idea what were. But even those were wholly enjoyable.

Not Disney-related, but someone hid this
little guy on campus and I thought it was cute.

Of course there were a bunch of kids there, and that was especially obvious when “Let it Go” started. There had been happy murmuring at Moana, but when Elsa appeared, the kids went nuts. It really was hard to hold back. I mean, come on. It may not even be legal to just sit there and listen to “The Bare Necessities.” You have to at least tap your toes, if not burst out into song. I had trouble holding back during “I’m Almost There,” so I could totally relate to the kids.

Not that anyone audibly sang along, really, although, when there was a mashup of what really amounted to pretty scary and/or sad scenes from 100 years’ worth of movies, a couple of kids started crying. No, Bambi’s mother was not featured, but it’s always sad when Beast almost dies.

In true Disney fashion, the whole scary/sad medley was followed by the uplifting set, because, of course, Beast didn’t die, Tiana opened her restaurant and Simba became king. The energetic ending came way too soon; the show lasted two hours but I could have listened to four.