The Knoxville Symphony, along with Disney Concert’s four excellent singers: Aaron Phillips, Andrew Johnson, Lisa Livesay and Whitney Claire Kaufman belting out the vocals, delivered a rousing program of specially-arranged music to accompany clips from recent animated Disney films.
The opening “Disney Memories Overture,” played by the KSO, with Aram Demirjian conducting, set the tone for fine playing by the KSO musicians who seemed to be having fun.
“The Princess and the Frog Medley” that opened the second half, had Phillips taking the lead.
Phillips is a vocal chameleon with not only a wide pitch range, but a variety of voice characterizations: a gruff monster, a frog, a smooth-smooth-as-silk prince, a clown and an opera tenor.
All four of the singers had big parts in the medley from “Frozen” that brought the show to a close, only to come right back with an encore of music from “The Lion King” that got the biggest cheers of the evening.