Idina Menzel's musical tribute

24 December 2019

Idina Menzel's festive album is a "tribute" to her theatre past.

Idina Menzel

The 'Frozen 2' star released 'Christmas: A Season of Love' in October and the title is taken from her "very first" professional job in stage production 'Rent' because she wanted to pay homage to her background.

She said: ""It's called 'The Season of Love' which is from 'Rent', which was my very first professional job - being on the Broadway show of 'Rent'.

"It's sort of a tribute to where I came from. It's a holiday album."

The record began with an original song about "inclusion and acceptance" and grew into a list of tracks that she was keen to sing to mark the festive season.

She continued: "It's got an original song called 'At This Table', which is about inclusion, acceptance, and forgiveness, and people who don't feel seen feel like they're welcomed home in their family.

"From that point, I just went on a curated a whole set list of stuff that I wanted to sing for the holidays.

"And Ariana Grande's on it, she sings a duet, our feminist Christmas song 'How About a Hand for Mrs. Clause'.

"And Josh Gad, who plays Olaf, is on it as well doing a duet with me."

The 48-year-old star previously admitted she feels "indebted" to Ariana for agreeing to appear on the record.

She said: "Ariana was so generous in her crazy touring schedule to find time to record this song with me, and I'm indebted to her.

"She would send me like every two lines that she recorded, and she would send like a little voice memo and go, 'How's this? Do you want me to do a riff here?' And I'd say, 'Just be you! I don't care, you're Ariana Grande!' And she'd say, 'No, I want you to be happy.' And then she'd say, 'What if on this lyric...' And I'd say, 'Yes! That's great.' And then I said, 'Wait, we're going to put in eight extra bars of a drum fill just so there's room for you to do a crazy Ariana riff.'

"It was just so funny, and she'd keep sending me little MP3s of what she was doing and making sure that I was happy. Every time, I was like, 'I'm happy!'"