Duncan Sheik, the singer-songwriter best known to pop audiences for his 1990s hit “Barely Breathing” who later found major success as a Broadway composer, has died at 56.
Sheik died Thursday at a Manhattan hospital after heart failure led to cardiac arrest, according to his mother, Suzanne Sheik.
The musician had been hospitalized periodically during the past month. His representatives said Wednesday, a day before his death, that he was in critical but stable condition.
Sheik emerged as a recording star with his self-titled debut album in 1996. Its biggest single, “Barely Breathing,” became one of the decade’s enduring alternative-pop hits.
The song spent 55 weeks on the Billboard Hot 100, the fourth-longest run in the chart’s history at the time. Sheik won a Grammy Award for Best Male Pop Vocal Performance for the song.
Born in Montclair, New Jersey, Sheik graduated from Brown University with a degree in semiotics. Before launching his solo career, he played guitar with fellow Brown graduate Lisa Loeb.
Although he continued recording after his initial pop success, Sheik eventually shifted much of his attention to musical theater.
His biggest achievement came with “Spring Awakening,” created with playwright and lyricist Steven Sater and based on Frank Wedekind’s controversial 1891 play about German teenagers confronting sexuality and adulthood.
The rock musical opened on Broadway in 2006 and became a major success, winning eight Tony Awards, including best musical. Sheik received Tonys for best original score and best orchestrations. The production also helped launch the careers of Lea Michele and Jonathan Groff.
Sheik later composed music for several other stage productions, including “American Psycho” and “Alice by Heart,” while continuing to record his own music. His final album, “Claptrap,” was released in 2022.
His recording career also included “Phantom Moon,” a 2001 collaboration with Sater, and a 2011 album featuring covers of songs by 1980s British artists including Depeche Mode and Tears for Fears.
Sheik is survived by his wife, Nora Ariffin, whom he married in 2011, and their 7-year-old daughter, Ines.
Source: The Guardian