Portrait of Alan Menken, photographed by Sarah Ackerman on October 21, 2013, is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike (accessed: May 25, 2018).
Alan Menken
, b. 1949
Alan Menken was born on July 22, 1949. His father was a “boogie-woogie piano-playing dentist” (accessed: May 24, 2018), while his mother was a dancer, actress and playwright. He, too, grew up to be an artist, an author of many musical and movie scores. One of his major works, the first that brought him a wide fame, was co-written with Howard Ashman and called The Little Shop of Horrors. (Like Hercules, this is narrated by a Greek-like choir of three African-American singers). This was enough for the duo to be hired by Disney as composers of the score for The Little Mermaid – Menken won an Oscar for the song Under the Sea and the whole score. He also created, along with various other musicians, scores for Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, and other Disney Renaissance movies. Menken wrote the music for Hercules, while David Zippel wrote the lyrics [6 gospel songs, including: The Gospel Truth sang by a Greek gospel choir and Zero to Hero which sums up Hercules’ heroic career]. Before this, they created the music for the cabaret revue It’s Better With a Band, and for the musical Diamonds.
Bio prepared by Anna Mik, University of Warsaw, anna.m.mik@gmail.com
Records in database:
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