Alen Menken Essay

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Alen Menken Alen Menken was born on June 22, 1949 in New Rochelle, New York. He was the son of Judith and Norman Menken. At an early age Alen showed a talent in music. He began taking piano and violin lessons and would get so bored he would make up his own versions of the song after his parents left the room. You could say that was the start of his career as a composer. Menken attended Rochelle High School in his home town and after graduation went to Pre-med school to become a dentist. Lucky for us he later changed his major to music. After college Alen attended the BMI Lehman Engel Musical Theater Workshop in New York where he worked at local clubs writing jingles and songs as an accompanist. Alen Menken got his first big break in January of 1979 with Howard Ashman in the Off-Broadway production “God Bless you, Mr. Rosewater.” Three years later he received a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Music in his Off-Broadway Production “Little Shop of Horrors” and from that in January of 1987 Menken was given his first Oscar nomination for a song with in it called “Mean Green Mother from Outer Space.” In 1990 Menken was nominated for three Oscar nominations and three Golden Globe Nominations and went on to win two of each for his work in the Walt Disney production “The Little Mermaid”. He went on to work with Walt Disney in the making of “Beauty and the Beast”, “Aladdin”, “Pocahontas”, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame”, and “Hercules.” In 2001 Menken was given the tremendous honor of being a Disney Legend. But he didn’t stop there. He kept working on titles such as, “Home on the Range”, “Enchanted”, “Tangled”, and “Mirror Mirror.”He has won a total of 8 Oscars, 7 Golden Globes, 2 Saturns, and 1 Grammy. Right now he is 63 years old and continues to work. He is married to Janis and he has two children Anna and Nora. They reside in New York. In my opinion he

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