Spring Awakening Composer Duncan Sheik Dies at 56

Spring Awakening composer Duncan Sheik has died of organ failure at the age of 56. Sheik had been hospitalized since August.

Sheik broke into mainstream attention with the song “Barely Breathing” from his eponymous 1996 studio album debut. He began a pivot to musical theater around the turn of the century, composing music for a Shakespeare in the Park production of Twelfth Night and the score for the film A Home at the End of the World.

His most enduring success came in 2006 with Spring Awakening, a musical adaptation of Frank Wedekind’s drama of teen angst in turn-of-the-century Germany. Sheik collaborated with book writer Steven Sater. The musical debuted off-Broadway at Atlantic Theater Company before transferring to Broadway later that year. It won the 2007 Tony Award for best musical, with Sheik personally winning two Tonys for best score and orchestrations. In addition, Spring Awakening the Grammy for Best Musical Show Album.

Sheik was prolific in the following years, composing the scores for Alice By Heart, American Psycho, Because of Winn-Dixie, Whisper House, Noir, The Secret Life of Bees, and Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice. While he never replicated the success of Spring Awakening, which was revived on Broadway in 2015, Sheik brought his talent for harmonically complex melodies and painfully honest lyrics to every project.

The composer had a busy fall ahead of him, with the premiere of his new manga-inspired musical, Memoirs of Amorous Gentlemen, scheduled to begin preview performances a week from today at Culture Club. An off-Broadway revival of Spring Awakening is slated to begin performances at Studio Seaview in November. Sheik and Sater’s musical Nero begins performances just a few weeks earlier at London’s Southwark Playhouse Elephant.

Sheik is survived by his wife, Nora Ariffin, and their daughter, Ines Sheik, as well as both parents.