South African musician, music therapist and activist Sharon Katz was born in Nelson Mandela Bay (Port Elizabeth) during the Apartheid era and began her anti-Apartheid work as a teenager. In the decades since, she has used her music for social activism around the world, was recorded by Sting, and received the 2019 Phil Ochs “Music for Political and Social Change” award. Making history by breaking through Apartheid’s barriers to form a 500-voice multicultural choir in her home country, Sharon took the group on tour aboard “The Peace Train” to promote Mandela’s vision of a nonracial South Africa. Grammy award winner Ladysmith Black Mambazo also joined Sharon on The Peace Train.

After Mandela's election, Sharon Katz & The Peace Train became the country’s first musical ambassadors of the new democracy. Their North American tours have included performances for Pete Seeger’s Clearwater Festival, Philadelphia Folk Festival, The Getty in Los Angeles, The Smithsonian in Washington DC, New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival and Carnegie Hall’s World Music Series. Several of Sharon’s albums have featured on the Grammy ballot for Best World Music including Imbizo, Side-By-Side and We Can Be The Change. In 2015, the critically acclaimed documentary “When Voices Meet” was released, about Sharon’s music and humanitarian work with The Peace Train project. The documentary received numerous awards at over 30 film festivals and has been broadcast on TV in over 50 countries.


Visit:
https://sharonkatz.com