Winner of eight Academy Awards, film composer Alan Menken has composed the songs and score for nearly all of Disney's musicals. He didn't do the Lion King only because he was busy with Pocahontas. He even composed the songs and score for Tangled, so when Disney announced another CGI animated musical, Frozen, many naturally assumed Menken would return for that project. However we ended up with songs by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez and score composed by Christophe Beck.
Why didn't Alan Menken compose the songs and score for Frozen? Was he busy on another project or something?
To clarify, I'm not saying Menken is the only choice for Disney musicals. However, with his recent work on Enchanted and Tangled, it seemed Disney was bringing him back as their go-to composer for musicals. He was even originally slated to do The Princess and the Frog. This made it all the more surprising when he ended up not doing Frozen.
