Alan Menken

Alan Menken, an American composer and songwriter born in New Rochelle, New York, in 1949, first made his mark on New York’s off-Broadway scene around the turn of the 1980s, notably with the musical Little Shop of Horrors (1982). Trained in musicology and piano, Menken developed a style closely tied to the American musical tradition, combining orchestral writing, immediately recognizable melodies and influences drawn from jazz, music-hall and pop. In the late 1980s he turned to film music and composed a series of scores and songs for Disney that left a lasting impact on animated cinema, including the soundtracks for The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991) and Aladdin (1992). His work continued on projects such as Pocahontas (1995), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996) and Hercules (1997), as well as on films mixing live action and animation like Enchanted (2007) and the animated feature Tangled (2010). Regularly paired with lyricists from musical theatre, Menken moves between Broadway and Hollywood, composes stage adaptations of his works and is widely performed in concert, while remaining associated with a repertoire in which the central, story-defining song plays a key role.