Composer Alan Menken, who has won eightAcademy Awards for his music for Walt Disney films such as The Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid and Pocahontas, has signed a non-exclusivemulti-picture deal with Walt Disney Pictures/Touchstone Pictures.

Menken, whose most recent score was writtenfor the upcoming Disney comedy The ShaggyDog, will among other things develop a newanimated musical for Walt Disney Feature Animation entitled The Frog Princess. He is also working onthe music for Enchanted, alive/animation fantasy musical slated for release next year, together withlyricist Stephen Schwartz. The two of them previously worked together on Pocahontas in 1995.

Apart from scoring films,Menken's deal with Disney lands him several stage commissions: the stageversion of The Little Mermaid, astage musical of The Snow Queen forTokyo DisneySea and the score for the stage version of the 1992 comedy Sister Act. The deal also includesnon-animation film scores - Menken is bestknown for his music for animated films but has expressed interest inwriting music for live-action films as well. In the past, he has only worked ona couple of non-animation films: Chazz Palminteri's Noel from 2004 and the 1993 comedy Life With Mikey.