(born 1949), U.S. composer. As the award-winning composer of the Disney animated blockbusters ‘The Little Mermaid' (1989), ‘Beauty and the Beast' (1991), ‘Aladdin' (1992), ‘Pocahontas' (1995), and ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame' (1996), Alan Menken ushered in a revival of the American movie musical through animated films. Menken and lyricist Howard Ashman—considered by many critics to be the most promising songwriting team in decades—wrote music that sold millions of records, made their Disney films huge hits, and brought each of them numerous industry awards. Ashman's untimely death in 1991 due to complications from AIDS abruptly ended the illustrious partnership. Alan Menken was born on July 22, 1949, the second of three children of Norman, a dentist, and Judith Menken, a homemaker. He was raised in New Rochelle, N.Y. At age 6 Alan began playing the piano and later studied the violin. He attended New York University, initially as a pre-med student before switching to a music major. After college Menken performed in Manhattan clubs, occasionally playing his own music. To earn additional money he played his own compositions to accompany ballet dancers at the Hebrew Arts Center, where he met his future wife, Janis. During the next few years, he wrote advertising jingles and enrolled in a musical-theater workshop at Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI), where he met playwright and director Howard Ashman. The two had an immediate rapport and teamed up to write a stage version of Kurt Vonnegut's novel ‘God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater'. The production bombed and Menken was ready to return to writing jingles when Ashman proposed they try doing a musical adaptation of the 1960 Roger Corman cult horror-comedy film ‘The Little Shop of Horrors'. The resulting 1982 musical, a surprise off-Broadway hit, eventually became a hit movie as well and brought the team to the attention of Disney's Jeffrey Katzenberg, who offered them a list of projects in the late 1980s. Their first project for Disney was an animated version of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale ‘The Little Mermaid'. The film and its soundtrack were record-breaking hits and earned Menken Academy awards for best original score and best original song for ‘Under the Sea'. When Menken began scoring Disney's animated version of ‘Beauty and the Beast', an 18th-century French fairy tale, Ashman informed him he had been infected with the virus that causes AIDS. Despite Ashman's debilitating illness, they continued working until Ashman's death. Menken's powerful score again brought him multiple awards. In 1991 Menken signed a seven-year deal with Disney to compose music and write songs. His first project after Ashman's death was ‘Newsies' (1992), a live-action musical movie that fell flat at the box office, followed by an off-Broadway production of ‘Weird Romance', a science fiction musical. Menken's next project for Disney was an animated version of ‘Aladdin'. Collaborating with British lyricist Tim Rice, ‘Aladdin' mixed traditional Arabic themes and 1940s American jazz. ‘Aladdin' exceeded ‘Beauty and the Beast' at the box office and brought Menken and Rice each a Grammy for the hit single ‘A Whole New World'. After ‘Aladdin', Menken adapted ‘Beauty and the Beast' for the stage. He collaborated with lyricist Stephen Schwartz to write and score the Disney animated features ‘Pocahontas' and ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame', both of which had best-selling soundtracks. He also worked on ‘Hercules' (1997) for Disney. |