We’ll admit we were pretty excited when Walt Disney Animation Studios announced that its 60th feature film would be Encanto.

Encanto photo op at Disney Springs

The first trailer was just MAGICAL, and the new Encanto merchandise that just dropped is pretty great (especially the GORGEOUS Encanto Minnie Ears). Now that the movie has been released, we’re enjoying learning much more about it and just what went into the movie’s music!

Encanto tells the story of a family who live in a magical house in the mountains of Colombia with each family member possessing a magical gift — except for one, Mirabel. But when the magic surrounding the house is in danger, Mirabel must figure out how to help save it. This isn’t JUST a story though — it’s a story WITH MUSIC (as you might have come to expect from many Disney movies). In this case, many of the songs for the film were written by Lin-Manuel Miranda — actor, composer, and creator of the Hamilton musical. 

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Lin-Manuel Miranda recently talked to the D23 Inside Disney podcast about how he approached writing music for Encanto. After talking about his love for Disney music throughout most of his life (including an obsession with The Little Mermaid), he spoke about the challenges of working on a movie that doesn’t have just one main character, but an entire intergenerational family with 12 characters.

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Miranda said, “that was really exciting to me from a songwriting perspective because the meat of it is our own family stories. And we all brought our own family stories and our relationships with our siblings and with our parents into the middle of the table. And that was our material. And being in there from the beginning made a huge difference to me because I was able to be really involved from a story standpoint.”

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He also spoke about one particular Disney composer who inspired him — Howard Ashman — who, along with Alan Menken, brought a more Broadway kind of sensibility to animated features and who Miranda feels helped spur on the resurgence of Disney animated features. Miranda said, “I really wanted to get my Howard Ashman on and call dibs on how music could help tell the stories.”

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He spoke about his process in creating the first song in the movie, “The Family Madrigal,” which was written before anyone knew how the film ended. He used that song to have Mirabel introduce the world of the movie, as well as who everyone is and what they can do. Then the song gets to her…because this is when viewers realize that Mirabel is the only family member without a magical gift.

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Mirada shared, “I wrote it knowing that the characters might change, their powers might change — and they did — but the structure and writing that early was really a nice thing to put on the cork board.” He also talked about how the song shows just how amazing Mirabel is and how proud she is of her family. “It’s underlining the story beats we need, but also introducing this character unlike any you’ve ever heard,” he said.

You can click here to listen to the FULL interview with Lin-Manuel Miranda on the D23 Inside Disney podcast!

Encanto is in theaters now, so be sure to check it out! We’ll let you know about any other fun Encanto facts we learn about, so stay tuned.

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Have you seen Encanto yet? What did you think about it? Let us know in the comments!