Born into a Jewish family, when her parents divorced at 15 Idina began performing at bar mitzvah’s and weddings as a singer before enrolling at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts where she studied performing arts.
In 1995, Menzel scored her first professional job as she joined the cast of the Broadway musical “Rent” as Maureen Johnson, a role which earned her a Tony nomination for Best Featured Actress in a Musical. Ending her successful run in 1997, Menzel released her debut solo album “Still I Can’t Be Still” through Hollywood Records in 1998.
Over the next couple of years, Menzel played small roles in theatre productions “Hair”, “The Wild Party” and “The Vagina Monologues” before landing the prolific role of Elphaba in the award winning musical “Wicked” in 2003. It was this role that really showcased Menzel’s incredible talent and powerful mezzo-soprano vocals and in her two year stint, she received the Tony award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical.
In 2004 Menzel released her second album “Here” before returning back to her role in “Rent” for the film adaptation the following year. Releasing her third album “I Stand” in 2008 allowed Menzel to take time out to support the release as she spent most of the year and 2009 touring the album, playing sold out shows across the country with Josh Groban and saxophonist Ravi Coltrone joining her on stage at The Lincoln Centre in New York City.
During 2010 Menzel embarked on the “Barefoot at the Symphony Tour” which allowed her to perform with symphony orchestras taking the tour nationwide and branching out to England and Australia. Later that year she had the opportunity to perform at the White House for President Obama and his wife singing the songs “Defying Gravity” and “What I Did for Love”.
It was her role as Elsa in the Disney’s chart-topping “Frozen” in 2013 and its enchanting lead single “Let It Go” which captivated audiences across the globe. The track won an Academy Award for Best Original Song at the 2014 Oscar’s where Menzel also performed it live. Later that year she released her fourth album “Holiday Wishes” which peaked at number six in the US Billboard Charts.
With a voice which captured the essence of Disney in modernity and a heart of gold, Menzel continues spreading joy to the masses both through her music and philanthropy work.
American singer and actress Idina Menzel was a lesser known pop star having spent a large amount of her time in theatre productions. Her albums were not considered to be particularly commercial successful however after the phenomena of Frozen she has become far more well known across the globe as the voice of heroin Elsa and her synonymous female empowerment anthem 'Let It Go'.
There is no doubt about it that Menzel is very much a theatre performer, and she uses a lot of her training when conducting her live show. There is great annunciation and you get the impression that the microphone is of slight redundancy as Idina could clearly captivate the whole room with her powerful vocal unaided. There is real passion when she performs some of her older, heartfelt tracks including 'So Beautiful'. She also performs a selection of covers from some of her favourite artists including Joni Mitchell and Radiohead which go over well with the audience especially as Idina explains her choices between the tracks. The largest singalong is of course for 'Let It Go' as this feel good anthem cannot be sang at anything other than full volume.