The songwriters behind “Let It Go” and “Remember Me” packed a Brown University auditorium to capacity last Saturday, and they didn’t come alone. Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Robert Lopez headlined a sold-out Family Weekend keynote, opening with a tune from their earlier Broadway days before handing the mic to their own daughter for one of the most recognizable songs of the last decade.
Brown President Christina H. Paxson welcomed families to campus Saturday evening ahead of the keynote, according to Brown University. Anderson-Lopez and Lopez kicked things off with “I Wish I Could Go Back to College” from “Avenue Q,” the musical Robert Lopez co-created before his career took him to Disney and Pixar. The choice doubled as a wink to the campus crowd gathered for a weekend built around college life.
The night’s emotional centerpiece came when the couple’s daughter, Kat Lopez, a Brown senior, joined her parents to perform “Do You Want to Build a Snowman?” It wasn’t her first time with the song. As a child, Kat sang young Anna’s part on the original 2013 “Frozen” soundtrack, the university noted. Brown University’s own social media account called the duet a highlight of the keynote, framing it for students scrolling past as a rare full-circle moment between a Brown family and a song most of them grew up with.
A Career Built On Frozen, Coco And Broadway
Anderson-Lopez and Lopez’s credits span Disney’s “Frozen,” Pixar’s “Coco” and Broadway’s “The Book of Mormon,” per the same Brown University account of the evening. The pair told the audience that watching their own daughters interact helped them find the emotional core of “Frozen,” a detail that reframed the sisterly bond between Anna and Elsa as something drawn directly from the songwriters’ home life.
That personal thread ran deeper than one film. The family’s bedtime lullabies, the university reported, helped inspire “Remember Me,” the Oscar-winning song from “Coco” that has become a staple of the Pixar soundtrack. Both songs earned the duo Academy Awards for Best Original Song, first for “Let It Go” from “Frozen” and later for “Remember Me,” a sweep documented by NPR.
Robert Lopez's Rare Double EGOT
Those two Oscars sit alongside a trophy case most songwriters only dream of. NPR reported that Robert Lopez became the first person to win an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony twice over, a feat that left him with two Oscars, two Emmys, three Grammys and three Tonys at the time of that reporting. It's the kind of résumé that made the Brown keynote feel less like a campus visit and more like a masterclass from the top of the industry.
What's Next For The Songwriting Duo
The Brown stop comes as the couple's next big stage project takes shape. Anderson-Lopez and Lopez are currently working on a stage musical adaptation of “The Princess Bride.”
