Alan Menken
Alan Menken is an American composer, songwriter, film score composer, pianist, and record producer, born on July 22, 1949, in New Rochelle, New York.
Menken attended New Rochelle High School before continuing his education at New York University, where he studied at both the New York University College of Arts and Science and the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development. His training in New York laid the groundwork for a career that would bring him recognition across multiple fields of composition and performance.
Among his notable works are the original motion picture soundtracks for The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin. The honors he has received are extensive: Menken has been awarded Academy Awards for both Best Original Song and Best Original Score, as well as Golden Globe Awards and Grammy Awards. He has additionally received a Tony Award for Best Original Score and a Daytime Emmy Award, a range of recognition that extends across film, television, and the stage. He has also been named a Disney Legend.
The original motion picture soundtracks for The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin remain among his most documented works, and it is through these scores — along with his Tony Award for Best Original Score — that his presence as both a film score composer and a songwriter is most concretely established.
Quotes by Alan Menken
Live-action films are very much a director's medium, and that director is going to be a very strong voice, a stronger individual voice than you'd have in animation.
The Disney tradition - number one, it's a great American classic tradition - and it's something where you don't want to go over certain lines. You want to poke fun, but you don't want to poke fun in a way that's hurtful.
I have the ability to clear the decks and focus on what's happening in the moment. And I get to spend my life doing what I love to do.
When I write the music for any of my songs, I write as a composer-lyricist in my head.
Truth be told, of course, what I enjoy most is reinventing myself and doing new projects where I work in new genres, or I get to find what the voice of a particular musical is.
My first success was 'Little Shop of Horrors,' and I had been working for years on jingles.
I have lots of personal feelings of my own, but at this stage in my life and career, I'm very much driven by assignment.
When I first started working at Disney animation, I can't tell you how many people said to me, 'Oh, man, take a powder.' Nobody takes animated musicals seriously. I swear.
I have an awards cabinet in my studio where I keep my eight Oscars, my 11 Grammys, my seven Golden Globes, and my Tony Award.