Alan Irwin Menken [ 1 ] born July 22, is an American composer and conductor. He is best known for his scores and songs for films produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios. His father was a boogie-woogie piano-playing dentist, and his mother was an actress, dancer and playwright. He began to compose at an early age. Menken noted that "Before college, I was writing songs to further my dream of being the next Bob Dylan.
A lot of guitar songs โ I was composing on piano before that. Menken remembers: "I'd make up my own Bach fugues and Beethoven sonatas because I was bored with the piano and I didn't want to practice; so I'd go off on tangents". Menken recalled: "First, I was pre-med. I thought I'd be a dentist like my dad. Finally, I got a degree in music, but I didn't care about musicology.
After graduating, Menken's plan was to become either a rock star or a recording artist. His interest in writing musicals increased when he joined the Broadcast Music, Inc.
More and more, pianists can be heard joining in vocally, harmonizing with the singer, creating a background of shouts and exclamations or even doing brief passages of solo singing. According to Alan Menken He also wrote The Thorn with lyrics by Brown, which was commissioned by Divine in This was a parody of the film The Rose , but they could not raise the money to have it produced.
Menken finally achieved success as a composer when playwright Howard Ashman chose him and Engel to write the music for his musical adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut 's novel God Bless You, Mr.
