Booking Duncan Sheik

Duncan Sheik Biography

Duncan Sheik was born in 1969 in New Jersey, and spent his formative years in Montclair and also Hilton Head, South Carolina, where his grandmother encouraged him to learn to play the piano. Following his university studies, Sheik moved to California and began performing around locally, finding work as a studio musician and occasional performer.

It wasn’t until the mid 1990’s that he released his debut album, Duncan Sheik, which spawned “Barely Breathing,” a chart-topping hit which not only remained on the charts for more than a year, but also earned Duncan Sheik a Best Male Pop Vocal Performance Grammy nomination. Since his auspicious career beginning, Duncan Sheik has released a number of successful albums, including: Humming (1998), Phantom Moon (2001), Daylight (2002), White Limousine (2006), Whisper House (2009), and Covers 80’s (2011.)

After the success of “Barely Breathing,” (which has found its way onto hit television shows such as Glee and Girls), Sheik also began providing a number of single tracks for a variety of films and television shows, including “Reasons for Living” (ER); “In the Absence of Sun” (The Saint); “Wishful Thinking” (Great Expectations); “Alibi” (Teaching Mrs. Tingle); “View from the Other Side” (Friends); “Now or Never” (Boys and Girls); “On a High” (Birds of Prey); “Half Life” (What a Girl Wants); “I Am a Pilgrim” (Transamerica); and “Mama Who Bore Me” (90210.) Duncan Sheik has also created music for the New York Shakespeare Festival (for Twelfth Night, in 2002), and composed film scores for a number of movies and plays, including Through the Fire, Spring Awakening, and A Home at the End of the World. An active and practicing Buddhist, Sheik also contributed to Songs for Tibet: The Art of Peace (2008.)

Most recently, Duncan Sheik composed music for the Broadway adaptations of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (2012), and he is currently working on music for the musical American Psycho. Sheik continues to perform and record.