Alan Menken

Alan Menken, born Alan Irwin Menken on July 22, 1949, at French Hospital in Manhattan, is an American composer and conductor whose work spans Broadway, film, and television. He grew up in New Rochelle, New York, where he attended New Rochelle High School, graduating in 1967. His father was a dentist who played boogie-woogie piano, and his mother worked as an actress, dancer, and playwright. Menken took piano and violin lessons from an early age and began composing as a child, earning Superior and Excellent ratings at age nine from the New York Federation of Music Clubs Junior Composers Contest for an original piece titled "Bouree." He went on to study at New York University, graduating in 1972 from the University College of Arts and Science, and subsequently attended the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theatre Workshop, where mentorship from Lehman Engel deepened his commitment to writing for the musical theater.

During the mid-1970s, Menken showcased workshop compositions including Midnight, Apartment House, Conversations with Pierre, Harry the Rat, and Messiah on Mott Street at venues such as The Ballroom, Reno Sweeny, and Tramps. He supported himself during this period as a ballet and modern dance accompanist, musical director for club acts, jingle writer, arranger, songwriter for Sesame Street, and vocal coach. He contributed material to Off-Broadway and Off-Off-Broadway revues including Real Life Funnies, Diamonds, and Personals, and his revue Patch, Patch, Patch ran at the West Bank Cafe in 1979. His collaboration with playwright Howard Ashman began with a musical adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater, which opened at the WPA Theater in 1979 and later transferred to the Off-Broadway Entermedia Theater. Menken received the BMI Career Achievement Award in 1983 for his body of work in musical theater.

Menken and Ashman's next collaboration, Little Shop of Horrors, opened at the WPA Theater in 1982 and moved to the Off-Broadway Orpheum Theatre in the East Village, where it ran for five years and set the box-office record for the highest-grossing Off-Broadway show of all time. The show toured internationally and was adapted as a 1986 film starring Rick Moranis, earning Menken and Ashman their first Academy Award nomination for the song "Mean Green Mother from Outer Space." Menken's musical A Christmas Carol, with lyrics by Lynn Ahrens and a book by Mike Ockrent, debuted at Madison Square Garden's Paramount Theater in 1994 and became an annual New York holiday production. His stage credits also include King David, Sister Act, Newsies The Musical, Aladdin, and The Sleeping Beauty and the Beast. He received Tony Award nominations for Beauty and the Beast in 1993, The Little Mermaid in 2008, Sister Act in 2009, and Aladdin in 2014, and won the Tony Award for Best Original Score Written for the Theatre in 2012 for Newsies The Musical, a credit also recognized with the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music that same year. Additional Broadway work includes Leap of Faith in 2012 and A Bronx Tale in 2016.

Menken's film career is anchored by his long association with Walt Disney Animation Studios. His scores and songs for The Little Mermaid in 1989, Beauty and the Beast in 1991, Aladdin in 1992, and Pocahontas in 1995 each earned him two Academy Awards, bringing his total to eight. He also composed for The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, Home on the Range, Enchanted, Tangled, Disenchanted, and Spellbound, among other films. Over the course of his career, Menken has accumulated eleven Grammy Awards, seven Golden Globe Awards, a Daytime Emmy Award, and a Tony Award, making him one of 22 individuals to have achieved the competitive EGOT distinction. His collaborators across stage and screen have included Howard Ashman, Jack Feldman, Tim Rice, Lynn Ahrens, Stephen Schwartz, David Zippel, Glenn Slater, Benj Pasek, Justin Paul, and Lin-Manuel Miranda.