Emmy Rossum, star of the 2004 film adaptation of "
The Phantom of the Opera," is set to release her debut EP
Inside Out, through Geffen Records, exclusively through iTunes on July 31st, 2007. The three-song release will also include a 15-minute documentary "revealing a more intimate side of" the Golden Globe nominated actress.
With film credits including
Clint Eastwood's "Mystic River" and "The Day After Tomorrow," Rossum is best known to the Broadway community as Christine opposite
Gerard Butler in "Phantom." The 20-year-old talent was singing with the Metropolitan Opera at age seven alongside Placido Domingo and
Luciano Pavarotti.
In her first single off Inside Out, "Slow Me Down," Rossum sings more than 150 different parts and harmonies. Rossum says she was looking to make a departure from the "popera" stylings of original Phantom leading lady
Sarah Brightman having felt she had "exhausted" that part of herself.
"I didn't want this album to be like, 'Look what I can do,'" she says. "People have heard me hit the high 'E' in 'Phantom of the Opera,' and I'll use that range to occasionally add different colors. But I wanted to create a kind of music that would allow me to use my voice as another instrument. I sing the parts that would be played by guitar or piano. I tried to discover, how much can you do without instruments? What is the boundary of the human voice?"
"This music is who I am," says Rossum of her self-titled debut. "In the movies, I've always felt like one piece of the puzzle. But this is all me. It's my baby. I get to write, direct and star. And that's the most fulfilling thing. It's everything I've always wanted to do. This music is so close to me. It's something new… You can't categorize it."
"I've never been more excited about anything," she says about the record. "This album is about figuring out who I am. It's the real
Emmy Rossum. For the first time, I'm not speaking someone else's lines. I feel the most open and able to express myself in a song. It's scary because it's all me."
The three songs included in the iTunes bundle are "Slow me Down," "Falling" and "Stay." For more information on the EP and
Emmy Rossum, visit
www.geffen.com/emmyrossum and
www.myspace.com/emmyrossum.
