A Whole New World of Alan Menken: Disney Legend’s Rare Solo Concert Set for D23 2026

On the closing night of D23 2026, inside the Anaheim Convention Center, Alan Menken will step out for something the fan event rarely offers: an entire evening built around one composer’s own songbook. The concert is called A Whole New World of Alan Menken, and it is confirmed for Sunday, August 16 at 6:00 PM, closing out D23: The Ultimate Disney Fan Event presented by Visa, which runs August 14 through 16, 2026 in Anaheim, California.

Disney describes the show as a rare, one-man concert in which Menken shares the songs and the stories behind them, drawn from the films and stage musicals that have shaped generations of fans. There is no full orchestra pulling focus and no rotating cast of guest vocalists filling the stage around him. The night belongs to Menken himself, his piano, and the memories behind melodies audiences have carried since childhood.

The scope of the songbook on display is enormous. Official D23 programming points to selections from The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Pocahontas, Hercules, Tangled, Enchanted, and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Promotional artwork released for the concert also names Little Shop of Horrors and Newsies among the featured works, a reminder that Menken’s reach stretches well beyond animated Disney classics into the stage musicals he helped define.

For longtime fans, the appeal runs deep and personal. This is the composer behind Under the Sea and the Academy Award winning score for The Little Mermaid. He wrote the title song and score for Beauty and the Beast. He composed A Whole New World for Aladdin with lyricist Tim Rice, and Colors of the Wind for Pocahontas with Stephen Schwartz. His music narrated Ariel dreaming of life on land, Belle and the Beast sharing a ballroom waltz, Aladdin and Jasmine soaring across the night sky, and Hercules chasing his place among the gods in Go the Distance. At D23 2026, Menken gets to tell those stories himself, from behind the keys.

His connection to Disney runs deeper than any single film. Menken was inducted as a Disney Legend in 2001, an honor reserved for the people whose work has become part of the company’s identity. Across his career he has won eight Academy Awards, a total unmatched by any other living film composer. That history helps explain why D23 organizers chose to build a full evening around him rather than folding his songs into a larger group tribute.

The production carries a creative pedigree that fans of intimate concert events will recognize. It was written by Menken himself and directed by Richard Kraft, with additional material contributed by Kraft and Jennifer Lucy Cook. Kraft has spent years shaping story driven concert evenings for composers and performers, and that sensibility fits the promise Disney has made for this show, a guided walk through a songwriter’s life rather than a straightforward greatest hits set played end to end.

Access to the concert is tied to D23’s ticketing structure. It is included for holders of a D23 Fan Pass and for guests holding a full day Sunday pass. D23 Gold Members can also purchase tickets for themselves and up to five additional guests, extending the invitation to the friends and family who grew up on these songs alongside them. Landing on Sunday evening, the concert becomes a musical send off to the three day event, closing out a weekend filled with panels and presentations celebrating Disney’s history.

What makes this booking feel rare is simple. Alan Menken does not often perform a solo show built entirely from his own catalog in this kind of setting. Fans who have followed his career through decades of animated classics and stage adaptations are treated less often to an evening where he sets the pace himself, choosing what to play and what to say about it before he plays it. There is something intimate about that format, a composer talking through his own life in music rather than watching others perform it for him.

D23 has always leaned on nostalgia to bring fans together, and this concert fits that spirit while still feeling like something new. Menken’s songs have soundtracked engagements and childhood bedrooms for decades, and hearing him revisit them himself, on the very weekend Disney gathers its most devoted fans, gives the moment extra weight. It is a rare chance to watch the source of so many familiar melodies sit down and simply play.

As the Anaheim Convention Center fills for the closing hours of D23 2026, A Whole New World of Alan Menken stands as one of the weekend’s most anticipated moments. It is a chance to hear the melodies of Agrabah, the halls of Belle’s castle, the shores of Ariel’s ocean, and the streets of Paris outside Notre Dame, all performed by the person who wrote them, in a room full of the fans who grew up singing along.

This is part of our coverage of The Concerts of D23 2026 at D23 2026.

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