From Staff Reports
Orlando, FLA — Americus native, William C. Powell, Ph.D., is guest conductor for the 2006 Candlelight Processional at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida. The event is held every year in the America Gardens Theatre at Epcot. Powell will lead a mass choir joined by a 50-piece live orchestra and celebrity narrator, Cuba Gooding Jr., to tell the story of Christmas in words and music.
Rick Mizell, music director for Walt Disney Entertainment, invited Powell to serve as one of the guest conductors for the 2006 Candlelight Processional. Mizell first consulted with Bob Radock of Disney Youth Group Programs, who engaged Powell as a choral adjudicator for the 2006 Disney Honors Music Festival held in April at Walt Disney World.
Powell will conduct Candlelight Processional performances on the evenings of Dec. 21-23. The Candlelight Processional occurs every evening from Nov. 24-Dec. 24. In addition to Powell, other guest conductors and celebrity narrators will be featured throughout the run of the show. For more information about the Candlelight Processional at Walt Disney World, visit http://www.wdwinfo.com/holidays/candlelight_processional.htm.
Powell, the son of William and Emma Powell of Americus, is a 1980 graduate of Americus High School (AHS). While at AHS, Powell participated in the chorus and AHS Singers under the direction of Dale Farmer who is currently completing a doctoral degree in music education at Auburn University. Powell also participated in the band program, serving as one of the first African-American drum majors for the marching band at Americus High School. A former member of Big Bethel Baptist Church in Americus, Powell was pianist and music leader of the Americus Interdenominational Youth Choir, a gospel choir which he co-founded with Alphonso Brown, a 1979 graduate of AHS.
After graduating from AHS, Powell pursued a bachelor’s degree in music education at Alabama State University in Montgomery. He received a master’s degree in music education from Westminster Choir College (Princeton, N.J.) in 1987, and received a doctoral in music education from The Florida State University in 1993 along with his wife, Rosephanye Dunn Powell, doctor of music, of Lanett, Ala., who is also on the music faculty at Auburn University.
At Auburn University, Powell conducts the Concert Choir and Gospel Choir, and teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in conducting, choral techniques, choral arranging, and distance courses in music. In April 2006, he was featured in a debut conducting recital where he led the New England Symphonic Orchestra and a mass choir of singers from around the country, including students from Auburn University, in a performance of W. A. Mozart’s “Missa Brevis in B-flat,” and Franz Joseph “Haydn’s Te Deum” at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
