“TOGETHER: A Pixar Musical Adventure” Press Conference Reveals Details About New Disneyland Paris Show

Hi everyone!

“TOGETHER: A Pixar Musical Adventure” debuts July 15th, 2023 at Disneyland Paris, and we were included in the press event yesterday to view the show and attend a press conference. Our friend Rony from @DLPlicious covered this for us. We have posted an article with his views on this “must-see” and “brilliant” show, and he also recorded the press conference that featured producer Astrid Gomez and co-directors Matthieu Robin and Arnaud Feredj.

The “TOGETHER: A Pixar Musical Adventure” press conference is about 25 minutes long and gives great insight into the show. I have an article below as well.

Gomez has been a producer with Disneyland Paris since 2017. She has an impressive list of credits that includes “Mickey’s Christmas Big Band” (which I would love to see return), “Mickey’s Dazzling Christmas Parade” and the incredible “Dream…And Shine Brighter!” that she worked on with Robin for the 30th Anniversary of Disneyland Paris. “Dream…And Shine Brighter!” is still running through September 30th, 2023.

Feredj has been a Disneyland Paris show director since 2017. He has created and directed shows including “Mickey’s Christmas Big Band” and the drone show “Avengers: Power the Night” (which returns from from September 1st until November 5th, 2023 in Walt Disney Studios Park).

Robin has also been a show director at Disneyland Paris since 2017. He has worked on “Jungle Book Jive”, the new “Disney D-Light” show this year and the return of “Disney Dreams”. We met Robin and Gomez last year for a press conference during the Disneyland Paris 30th Anniversary kickoff.

Photos by Rony Ramaekers for Mousesteps

The trio were asked a question on how “TOGETHER: A Pixar Musical Adventure” came about. Feredj answered, “Matthieu and I created the concept. They spent “hours, days and nights” brainstorming to find the best story for a Pixar show. “We came up with an idea, the concept that you will see tonight. And right after this, we started a discussion with Astrid and her fabulous team”. He continued, “And six months after, here we are”.

After being asked about the speed of putting the show together, Robin answered “That was intense”. He then continued, “We are very lucky at Disneyland Paris to have so many experts in the show industry. So all the technical members of our team, all the support teams, the costuming teams…we’ve been really working together very intensely for the last six months”.

Feredj mentioned that there are Easter eggs in “TOGETHER: A Pixar Musical Adventure”. “If you are really careful, you’ll find other characters somehow in the show”.

Gomez was asked what was changed in Studio Theater to welcome “TOGETHER: A Pixar Musical Adventure”. Gomez answered, “As you know, we have already had other shows happening in that theater. Previously, a Marvel show and before that obviously, ‘Cinemagique’, which is a mythical show that inspired us very much for the story” because the venue was representative of the cinema “and everything we wanted to put into our show”. She said there were many assets in the theater. “We kept a lot of equipment that was there and then we added many, many new technologies into the theater…but not only.” She said they also utilized older theater techniques that she says their machinery team is “delighted to have” because it gives them a strong presence in the show and brings back those areas of expertise.

Gomez added that there is a lot of “immersive media” in the show. “There are LED screens from the floors to the back walls to the side portals”. Everything is covered with LED and so it gives it “an immersive dimension”. But there are also many pieces of decor, which are “very impressive” and some of them are 30 meters long, 6 meters high. She said that in each scene, “there is something that pushes you even more into the story with multisensorial effects like wind, like water”. She continued, “You can really live what you’re watching”.

Robin was asked why they chose the title “TOGETHER: A Pixar Musical Adventure”. He answered, “The music is very important for us, in this show.” While there is a soundtrack recorded in Nashville, there are also eight live musicians. “For us it is very important to have these live musicians, we have eight of them who are here every day to perform the show. And they don’t just illustrate the story, they will really influence and drive the story”.

Feredj took over the music conversation. “Music is so important to the show…to the story itself. As we mentioned, Charlie wants to direct the annual school gala.” He says that Charlie’s friends, the toys from the “Toy Story” universe, are trying to look after the music scores. “For each universe, we tried to be very specific about the music. The musicians of course are directly influencing the movie, and then influencing the story. But each sequence and each production number has a very strong identity around the music.” He continued, “For example, the “Toy Story” universe is illustrated with “Together we are One”, which is an original song written for the show. And then, in each universe, we have a very strong identity. For “Monsters, Inc.”, we have this rock sound, very 80s that illustrates perfectly this universe”. “Finding Nemo” has a different identity, something “funky” almost disco. He said it was very important for each universe to have a strong musical identity.

Gomez talked about recording the music. “To record the music, we had the immense opportunity and honor to go to Nashville. She said that they had already recorded “Dream…and Shine Brighter!” in Nashville, the songs of the popular mashup. “For TOGETHER, we wanted to go back because we worked there with an amazing sound engineer and arrangers that did a fantastic job on arranging all this iconic music from the different IPs.” She also mentioned the terrific Nashville musicians. And then adding in the live orchestra in Studio Theater gives it another dimension.

Watch the video above of the entire press conference, there is much more to learn about “TOGETHER: A Pixar Musical Adventure”. We can’t wait to see it in September.