Alan Menken
Alan Menken is an American Broadway and an eight-time Academy Award winning composer and pianist. Menken has collaborated with several renowned lyricists including Howard Ashman, Tim Rice and Stephen Schwartz.
Biography
Alan Menken was born July 22, 1949 in New Rochelle, New York into a Jewish family. He developed an interest in music at an early age and began studying piano and violin. He attended New York University as a pre-med student, but later changed his focus to music. After college, he attended the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop, through which he met Howard Ashman. He performed frequently in local clubs and worked as a composer of jingles and songs and as an accompanist.
During the late 1970's, Menken wrote several shows that were successfully showcased, but 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 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 on several Disney animated features, including The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Hercules, and Home on the Range. Menken has received eight Academy Awards and has one of the highest Oscar to film ratios of anyone in the industry. He recently produced all the music for the Disney movie, Enchanted (2007)
Awards
Academy Award Nominations and Wins
1986: Nominated, Original Song (with Howard Ashman) - "Mean Green Mother from Outer Space", from Little Shop of Horrors
1989
o Won, Original Score - The Little Mermaid
o Won, Original Song (with Howard Ashman) - "Under the Sea", from The Little Mermaid
o Nominated, Original Song (with Howard Ashman) - "Kiss the Girl", from The Little Mermaid
1991
o Won, Original Score - Beauty and the Beast
o Won, Original Song (with Howard Ashman) - "Beauty and the Beast", from Beauty and the Beast
o Nominated, Original Song (with Howard Ashman) - "Belle", from Beauty and the Beast
o Nominated, Original Song (with Howard Ashman) - "Be Our Guest", from Beauty and the Beast
1992
o Won, Original Score - Aladdin
o Won, Original Song (with Tim Rice) - "A Whole New World", from Aladdin
o Nominated, Original Song (with Howard Ashman) - "Friend Like Me", from Aladdin
1995
o Won, Original Song (with Stephen Schwartz) - "Colors of the Wind", from Pocahontas
o Won, Original Musical or Comedy Score (with Stephen Schwartz) - Pocahontas
1996: Nominated, Original Musical or Comedy Score (with Stephen Schwartz) - The Hunchback of Notre Dame
1997: Nominated, Original Song (with David Zippel) - "Go the Distance", from Hercules
2007
o Nominated, Original Song (with Stephen Schwartz) - "Happy Working Song", from Enchanted
o Nominated, Original Song (with Stephen Schwartz) - "So Close", from Enchanted
o Nominated, Original Song (with Stephen Schwartz) - "That's How You Know", from Enchanted
Tony Awards and Drama Desk Awards
1983 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music - Little Shop of Horrors [nominee]
1994 Tony Award for Best Original Score - Beauty and the Beast [nominee]
1994 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Music - Beauty and the Beast [nominee]
2008 Tony Award for Best Original Score - The Little Mermaid [nominee]