The woman who gave Elsa her voice in Disney’s Frozen grew up in the Syosset area and graduated from Syosset High School in 1989. Idina Menzel, whose performance of “Let It Go” became one of the most recognizable songs in modern animated-film history, started her professional singing career while still a teenager on Long Island, performing at weddings and bar mitzvahs.
When Disney released Frozen on November 27, 2013, Menzel was already a Tony Award-winning Broadway performer. Her work as Elsa introduced her voice to an enormous new audience, particularly children who would spend the following years singing “Let It Go” at considerable volume.
From Syosset High School to Broadway
Menzel grew up in the Syosset and Woodbury area, where she took singing lessons, performed in choirs and attended Syosset High School. The school’s theater program lists her among the students who participated in an early production by its Association of Creative Thespians, a musical revue called Let’s Go Back to Yesterday.
By age 15, she was performing professionally at weddings and bar mitzvahs. Those jobs exposed her to an unusually broad assortment of music, from Motown and contemporary pop to jazz standards associated with Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday and Sarah Vaughan. Menzel later credited that experience with helping her develop the versatility she would need as a professional singer.
Another future Broadway performer attended Syosset High School at almost exactly the same time. Adam Pascal, a member of the class of 1988, lived near Menzel and later recalled their teenage years in a local interview. Menzel graduated the following year, and both eventually became members of the original Broadway cast of Rent.
After high school, Menzel attended New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, continuing to sing professionally while earning her degree. In 1995, she landed her first major theatrical role as Maureen Johnson in Jonathan Larson’s Rent, which opened Off-Broadway in January 1996 before transferring to Broadway. Her performance earned a Tony Award nomination.
From Wicked to Frozen
Menzel’s next defining Broadway role came in 2003, when she originated the part of Elphaba, the green-skinned witch in Wicked. She won the Tony Award for Best Actress in a Musical in 2004, establishing herself as one of Broadway’s leading performers.
Her voice soon became familiar to television and movie audiences as well. She appeared in Disney’s Enchanted in 2007 and played Shelby Corcoran on the television series Glee before being cast as Elsa in Frozen.
The 2013 Disney film featured Menzel as Elsa and Kristen Bell as her younger sister, Anna. At the center of its soundtrack was “Let It Go,” written by the husband-and-wife songwriting team of Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez. Menzel’s recording accompanied the sequence in which Elsa builds an enormous ice palace after fleeing her kingdom.
The song won the Academy Award for Best Original Song in March 2014, while Frozen won Best Animated Feature. Menzel performed “Let It Go” during the ceremony, bringing a singer who had started at Long Island weddings to one of the entertainment industry’s most widely watched stages.
The recording’s success continued well beyond the film’s original theatrical release. In 2024, Disney announced that “Let It Go” had earned Diamond certification from the Recording Industry Association of America, representing 10 million certified units in the United States. It was the first recording from Walt Disney Records to achieve that milestone.
Menzel returned as Elsa in Frozen 2, released in November 2019. The sequel featured another major vocal performance, “Into the Unknown,” again written by Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez.
Elsa’s voice also recorded Christmas music
Menzel’s association with winter extended beyond the Frozen movies. In October 2014, less than a year after the first film arrived, she released Holiday Wishes, her first Christmas album.
The record included traditional holiday songs and a duet with Michael Bublé on “Baby, It’s Cold Outside.” It became Menzel’s first album to reach the Top 10 of the Billboard 200 and topped Billboard’s Holiday Albums chart.
She returned to Christmas music in 2019 with Christmas: A Season of Love, released shortly before Frozen 2. The album featured appearances by Ariana Grande, Billy Porter and Josh Gad, who voices Olaf in the Frozen films. It also included Menzel’s husband, actor Aaron Lohr.
Menzel has spoken openly about having mixed feelings toward the holidays while growing up in a Jewish family. She recalled that her parents announced their separation on Thanksgiving, while later experiences raising her son helped her develop a different relationship with the season. Her Christmas recordings reflected both her appreciation for the music and her changing personal experience of the holidays.
Returning to Long Island
Despite her international success, Menzel continued returning to Long Island for performances. She appeared at the Tilles Center at LIU Post in Brookville and received an honorary doctorate from the university in 2011.
On July 17, 2015, she performed at the Nikon at Jones Beach Theater in Wantagh as part of a world tour. By then, audiences knew her through Rent, Wicked and Frozen, a career that had begun with local singing engagements while she was attending high school.
Menzel was inducted as a Disney Legend in 2022, recognition of a career that includes one of the studio’s most successful animated characters. Her performance of “Let It Go” remains closely associated with Elsa, even as her career continues across theater, film and recorded music.
There is a particularly interesting local connection in the years before all of that success. Two students who attended Syosset High School in the late 1980s, Menzel and Pascal, would eventually appear together in one of Broadway’s defining musicals of the 1990s. One of them went on to provide the voice for a Disney character known to children around the world.
Sources:
- Syosset High School Theatre Arts – Official history of the school’s theater program, including Menzel’s participation in an early production.
https://www.onthestage.tickets/syosset-high-school/about - Disney D23 – Official biography covering Menzel’s early singing career, Broadway roles, Elsa and her 2022 Disney Legends recognition.
https://d23.com/walt-disney-legend/idina-menzel/ - The Washington Post – 2013 interview discussing her Woodbury upbringing, teenage singing career and Syosset classmate Adam Pascal.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/theater_dance/idina-menzel-defying-gravity-again/2013/10/31/d138f8f0-40d7-11e3-b028-de922d7a3f47_story.html - Syosset Patch – Interview with Adam Pascal confirming he graduated in 1988 and Menzel in 1989.
https://patch.com/new-york/syosset/rent-star-adam-pascal-revisits-roots - Disney Movies – Official Frozen film information, cast and original 2013 release date.
https://movies.disney.com/frozen - The Walt Disney Company – Details of the Diamond certification for Let It Go in 2024.
https://thewaltdisneycompany.com/news/frozen-smash-let-it-go-reaches-riaa-diamond-status-with-10-million-sales/ - Playbill – 2014 coverage of Holiday Wishes reaching the Billboard Top 10.
https://playbill.com/article/idina-menzels-holiday-wishes-lands-high-on-billboard-top-200-chart-com-337155 - Playbill – 2019 announcement of Christmas: A Season of Love, including its featured performers.
https://playbill.com/article/idina-menzels-christmas-a-season-of-love-album-will-feature-guest-stars-billy-porter-ariana-grande-more - News 12 Long Island – 2019 interview discussing Menzel’s Syosset roots, Frozen 2 and Christmas recordings.
https://longisland.news12.com/im-having-a-blast-honestly-frozen-star-syosset-native-idina-menzel-talks-christmas-album-carnegie-concert-41414436
Idina Menzel, who graduated from Syosset High School in 1989, provided the voice of Elsa in Disney’s 2013 animated film Frozen. (Idina Menzel photo: Eric Maldin/Walkman Productions Inc., courtesy Disney+. Elsa image: © Disney.)
