Alan Irwin Menken is an American composer, pianist, music director, and record producer, best known for his scores and songs for films produced by Walt Disney Animation Studios and Skydance Animation. Menken's music for The Little Mermaid (1989), Beauty and the Beast (1991), Aladdin (1992), and Pocahontas (1995) has each won him two Academy Awards. He also composed the scores and songs for Little Shop of Horrors (1986), Newsies (1992), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1996), Hercules (1997), Home on the Range (2004), Enchanted (2007), Tangled (2010), and Disenchanted (2022), among others. His accolades include winning eight Academy Awards — becoming the second most prolific Oscar winner in the music categories after Alfred Newman, a Tony Award, eleven Grammy Awards, seven Golden Globe Awards, and a Daytime Emmy Award. Menken is one of nineteen people to have won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony.
Menken in 2013
The Little Mermaid (1989 film)
The Little Mermaid is a 1989 American animated musical fantasy film produced by Walt Disney Feature Animation in association with Silver Screen Partners IV and released by Walt Disney Pictures. It is loosely based on the 1837 Danish fairy tale of the same name by Hans Christian Andersen. The film was written and directed by John Musker and Ron Clements and produced by Musker and Howard Ashman, who also wrote the film's songs with Alan Menken. Menken also composed the film's score. Featuring the voices of René Auberjonois, Christopher Daniel Barnes, Jodi Benson, Pat Carroll, Paddi Edwards, Buddy Hackett, Jason Marin, Kenneth Mars, Ben Wright and Samuel E. Wright, The Little Mermaid tells the story of a teenage mermaid princess named Ariel, who dreams of becoming human and falls in love with a human prince named Eric, which leads her to make a magic deal with the sea witch, Ursula, to become human and be with him.
A promotional image of the principal characters from the film. From left to right: King Triton, Scuttle, Ariel, Prince Eric, Sebastian, Ursula, and Flounder.
Georges de La Tour's 1640 painting Magdalene with the Smoking Flame is shown in the film.