Duncan Sheik

At 54 years old, Duncan Sheik has this physical status:

Early in his musical career, Sheik played guitar for other artists, including Liz and Lisa (with Elizabeth Mitchell and Lisa Loeb). Sheik also played on His Boy Elroy's 1993 album through his connections from a fellow Brown alum, Tracee Ellis Ross.

In 1996, Sheik released his self-titled debut album, which was certified gold. The album featured the hit single "Barely Breathing", which peaked at number 16 and remained on the Billboard Hot 100 for 55 consecutive weeks. "Barely Breathing" also enjoyed Top 20 success on Adult Contemporary radio, reached No. 2 on the Adult Top 40 charts, and garnered Sheik a Grammy Award nomination for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance.

In 1998, Sheik recorded "Embraceable You" for Red Hot + Rhapsody, a George Gershwin tribute to increase AIDS awareness, and also recorded "Songbird" for another tribute, Legacy: A Tribute to Fleetwood Mac's Rumours. Also in 1998, Sheik released Humming, an experimental follow-up with string arrangements.

Sheik sang a duet with singer Howard Jones on Jones' 2000 single entitled Someone You Need.

Sheik released Phantom Moon, a Nick Drake-influenced album on which he collaborated with poet and writer Steven Sater, in 2001. The following year, Sheik released Daylight, a brighter, more modern-sounding album which included the singles, "On A High" and "Half-Life". After a four-year recording break, Sheik released White Limousine (2006), an album which included companion software on a DVD-ROM to remix individual tracks. In 2008, Sheik was a judge at the 7th annual Independent Music Awards.

In 2009 he released Whisper House, a concept album which provided the score for the musical of the same name. The stage musical premiered at The Old Globe Theatre in San Diego in January 2010, after a workshop at Vassar College, produced by New York Stage and Film in 2009.

In 2011, Sheik released Covers 80's, an album including covers of popular 1980s songs. Concert dates in support of the album were later canceled due to Sheik seeking treatment for alcohol addiction. A remixed version of the album was released the following year. Sheik released a new studio album entitled Legerdemain in October 2015.

In addition to being a singer-songwriter, Sheik has also composed music for plays, musicals, and movie soundtracks. He composed original music for the 2002 New York Shakespeare Festival production of Twelfth Night.

In 2004, he composed the score for the film A Home at the End of the World. The AllMusic reviewer wrote: "...takes the sensitivity and tension of the film's plot and crafts incidental music and new songs that complement the movie well." He composed the score for the 2005 film Through the Fire with Pete Miser.

Sheik wrote the music for Spring Awakening (2006) in collaboration with Steven Sater. Written over a period of eight years, the musical, which premiered off-Broadway during the summer, opened on Broadway to critical acclaim later in the fall. The musical was based on the controversial German expressionist play The Awakening of Spring, written by Frank Wedekind. Sheik won the 2006 Tony Award for Best Orchestrations for his work on Spring Awakening, and he and Sater won a Tony Award for Best Original Score. In addition, Spring Awakening won the Tony Award for Best Musical and a Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album. The guitar that Sheik used to compose songs for Spring Awakening was displayed at the New York Public Library for the Performing Arts at Lincoln Center. As of 2012, Sheik was composing music for a feature-film adaptation of Spring Awakening, an adaptation almost a decade in the making.

In 2012, Sheik wrote Alice By Heart, an adaptation of Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, along with collaborator Sater. Directed by Jessie Nelson with musical direction by Lance Horne, the musical was workshopped at the Royal National Theatre and commissioned by the National Theatre Connections.

Sheik wrote the music and lyrics to the 2013 musical adaptation of American Psycho, which opened at the Almeida Theatre in London, and was later staged on Broadway in 2016.

In 2013, Sheik wrote the music for the musical adaptation of the novel Because of Winn-Dixie, which premiered at the Arkansas Repertory Theatre. Dixie was a collaboration with then-director John Tartaglia and Nell Benjamin, who wrote the book and lyrics. The musical ran at the Goodspeed Opera House, East Haddam, Connecticut from July 2019 to September 2019, directed by John Rando.

In 2015, Sheik wrote the musical thriller Noir with Kyle Jarrow. It premiered as part of New York Stage and Film's season in July to August 2015 at the Powerhouse Theater at Vassar College. Inspired by live radio plays and classic film noir, the musical was directed by Rachel Chavkin.

In 2016 he prepared the music for the Shakespeare Theatre Company (Washington, D.C.) production of The Taming of the Shrew, described in The Washington Post as "an assortment of preexisting songs by singer-songwriter Duncan Sheik".

Sheik produced singer-songwriter Micah Green's 2000 debut album as well as his 2012 follow-up.

In 2000, Sheik wrote the foreword to The Way of Youth: Buddhist Common Sense for Handling Life's Questions, by Soka Gakkai International leader Daisaku Ikeda.

In 2006, Sheik recorded the song "A Purple Trail" for Other Songs and Dances, Vol. 1. In 2008, Sheik participated in Songs for Tibet: The Art of Peace, an initiative to support Tibet, Dalai Lama, and Tenzin Gyatso.

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