Alan Menken
Born (1949-07-22) July 22, 1949 (age 62)
New York, NY, U.S.
Genres Pop, musical theatre
Occupations Composer, songwriter, pianist, record producer[1], singer
Instruments Piano, keyboard
Years active 1980-present
Labels Disneyland, Walt Disney Records, Warner Bros.

Alan Menken (born July 22, 1949) is a pianist and composer of American musical theatre and film.

Menken is best known for his scores for films produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios. His scores for The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and Pocahontas have each won him two Academy Awards. He also composed the scores for The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Home on the Range, The Shaggy Dog, Enchanted, and most recently, Tangled. Menken has collaborated on several occasions with lyricists including Howard Ashman, Tim Rice, Glenn Slater, and Stephen Schwartz. With nineteen nominations and eight wins, Menken has won the third most Oscars of any person, after Walt Disney (twenty-two wins) and Alfred Newman (nine wins).


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Life and career [link]

Menken was born in New York, NY to a Jewish family, the son of Judith and Norman Menken, a dentist.[2] He developed an interest in music at an early age, studying piano and violin. He went to New Rochelle High School in New Rochelle, New York. He attended college as a pre-med student, but later changed his focus to music at NYU Steinhardt. After college, he attended the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop. He performed frequently in local clubs and worked as a composer of jingles and songs and as an accompanist.

In the late 1970s, Menken wrote several shows that were successfully showcased, but were not produced. Menken's first major professional work was with Ashman for the Off-Broadway 1979 WPA Theatre production of the play God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, an adaptation of a Kurt Vonnegut novel. This was well received, but three years later, he achieved greater success with the 1982 Off-Broadway musical Little Shop of Horrors, again with Ashman, for which he earned a Drama Desk Award nomination. Little Shop was adapted for a successful motion picture and later received a Broadway run.

In 1983, Menken received the BMI Career Achievement Award for his body of work for musical theater, including Little Shop of Horrors, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, Real Life Funnies, Atina: Evil Queen of the Galaxy (produced in workshop as Battle of the Giants), Patch, Patch, Patch, and contributions to numerous revues including Personals and Diamonds. In 1987, a musical adaptation of The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, with lyrics by David Spencer, was produced in Philadelphia. In 1992, the WPA Theatre produced Menken's Weird Romance, also with lyrics also by Spencer. Menken's 1994 musical based on the Charles Dickens classic A Christmas Carol, with lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and book by Mike Ockrent, debuted at Madison Square Garden's Paramount Theater. The show proved successful and is becoming an annual New York holiday event. Menken received both Tony Award and Drama Desk Award nominations for the music to the stage musical version of Beauty and the Beast which opened on Broadway in 1994.

Menken is best known, however, for his work over the past two decades with Walt Disney Pictures scoring numerous films, including Disney animated classics The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules and Home on the Range, and most recently, Disney's 2010 animated film Tangled. He also wrote music for the Disney live-action films Newsies (1992) and Enchanted (2007). Menken has received dual Academy Awards for Best Original Score and Best Original Song on four of these projects. With eight Academy Award wins (four each for Best Original Score and Best Original Song), only composer Alfred Newman (nine wins) and Walt Disney (twenty two wins) have received more Oscars than Menken. He is tied in third place with late costume designer Edith Head. He currently holds the record for the most wins for a living person. He was named a Disney Legend in 2001.

A musical version of The Little Mermaid opened on Broadway in January 2008. Menken's Sister Act the Musical was produced in London, 2009, and opened on Broadway in Spring 2011. He was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Score for his work.[3]

Menken received the 2,422nd star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on November 10, 2010.[4]

He is working on stage adaptations of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Newsies and Aladdin.[5]

In December 2010, he was a guest on NPR's new quiz show Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me!.

Filmography [link]

Feature [link]

Score and songs [link]

Songs only [link]

Television [link]

Musicals [link]

Other [link]

Upcoming projects [link]

  • Disney has announced that Der Glöckner Von Notre Dame, the Berlin stage musical adaptation of Disney's The Hunchback of Notre Dame will be coming to the Broadway stage in the next couple of years. Although the extended music and new songs with lyrics by Stephen Schwartz were completed for the 1999 premiere in Germany, the show is being fine tuned for American audiences, with a 2012 premiere anticipated.
  • Menken along with Weird Romance collaborator David Spencer wrote the musical The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, which is currently in Canada.[5]

Awards [link]

Academy Award nominations and wins [link]

Golden Globe nominations and wins [link]

Grammy Awards [link]

Menken has eleven Grammy awards, including Song of the Year for 1993. [7]

Tony Awards [link]

Drama Desk Awards [link]

Other awards [link]

Further reading [link]

References [link]

External links [link]


https://wn.com/Alan_Menken

Podcasts:

Alan Menken

ALBUMS

developed with YouTube
PLAYLIST TIME:

Finale \ Don't Feed the Plants

by: Alan Menken

They may offer you fortune and fame,
Love and money and instant acclaim.
But whatever they offer you,
Don't feed the plants!
They may offer you lots of cheap thrills,
Fancy discos in Beverly Hills.
But whatever they offer you,
Don't feed the plants!
Look out!
Here comes Audrey II.
Look out!
Here I come for you...
Here I come for you...
Here I come for you...
Here I come for you...
Hold you hat and hang on to your soul.
Something's comming to eat the world whole.
If we fight it we've still got a chance.
But whatever they offer you,
Though they're slopping the trough for you,
Please, whatever they offer you,
Don't feed the plants!




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