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Grammy and Tony award winning songwriter and composer Duncan Sheik returns with his new album Whisper House, due January 27 onVictor Records/Sony BMG. The collection of songs was written for a forthcoming theatrical piece. Whisper House marks Sheik’s first solo album since 2006’s critically-acclaimed White Limousine and comes on the heels of the success of the Broadway musical Spring Awakening for which Sheik collaborated with lyricist Steven Sater and composed an original score. Described by Variety as “the most startling and exciting rock tuner to hit the boards since ‘Rent’,” Spring Awakening won eight Tony awards, with Sheik earning two Tony awards for “Best Orchestration” and “Best Original Score” as well as a Grammy award for “Best Musical Show Album.” In February, Sheik will embark on a nationwide tour featuring original Spring Awakening cast member Lauren Pritchard.

On Whisper House, Sheik employs a narrative approach to songwriting,combining elements of the chamber pop that first brought him critical and commercial acclaim. Much like Spring Awakening, which the New York Times praised as a “deft blend of straight-up rock, folk and melodic pop,” Whisper House is just as much a pop record as it is a musical theatre composition. Structured as a melodrama, each of the 10 songs on the album weave together to tell the story of a child’s grief and spinster’s longing as seen through the eyes of the ghosts that haunt the remote, World War II-era Maine lighthouse where they live. Singer-keyboardist Holly Brooke plays a prominent role alongside Sheik on several of the songs..

The concept for Whisper House came about when actor Keith Powell (30 Rock) approached Sheik about developing a musical theatre piece with him. Following a trip Powell took to New England, a story began to emerge centered around a lighthouse. Up-and-coming playwright Kyle Jarrow was enlisted to write the script. Sheik wrote most of the music during a writing retreat on an island off of Charleston. A native Southerner, he explains, “Charleston has this history of ghost stories, a southern tradition that I kind of grew up with. I reconnected with it in some way and used that to write the lyrics to these songs. Having this narrative was so much more rich and vital, and it was so much more fun to write from the persona of these ghosts, these dead people, and the whimsical malevolence I could articulate through their voices. That felt really good and was very inspiring.”

Duncan Sheik launched his musical career 11 years ago with his self-titled debut album Duncan Sheik, which earned him a Grammy nomination for “Best Male Vocal.” He has subsequently garnered critical accolades for his unique brand of folk-pop music.. Sheik’s last studio album, White Limousine, was released in January 2006 to critical acclaim with the New York Times describing Sheik’s music as, “layers of instrumentation that add harmonic subtlety, emotional substance and a sense of physical distance to songs that have the feel of lotus-scented fairy tales.” Sheik’s career highlights are featured on a 2-CD collection of songs titledBrighter/Later: A Duncan Sheik Anthology, which was released by Rhino in October of 2006.

Visit: http://www.duncansheik.com/home/ for more information.