Sharon Katz was born in Port Elizabeth, now known as Nelson Mandela Bay, South Africa. As a young teenager during the terrible apartheid era, she used to sneak out to the “Blacks Only” townships by hiding under blankets in the back seat of her friend’s car. There, she met with the now-famous actors in Athol Fugard’s group, John Kani and Winston Ntshona, and began her lifelong mission of using music to help break down the country’s artificially-imposed racial barriers.
Back in 1992, Sharon made history in her home country of South Africa when she formed the country’s first-ever, 500-member multi-cultural and multi-lingual performing group and staged the production called “When Voices Meet.”
Then in 1993, Sharon rocked the nation with her concert tour, “The Peace Train.” “When Voices Meet” had been so successful and so widely publicized that invitations began pouring in from all over the country. To respond to all the requests, Sharon got sponsors to hire a train – The Peace Train – and took 150 of the performers, her friends Ladysmith Black Mambazo, as well as TV and radio crews on tour throughout the country. At each stop along the route, they performed their concert and encouraged people of all races, cultures, ages and political affiliations to put down their guns and hostilities and to prepare for the country’s transition to a peaceful democracy. The performing group became known as “The Peace Train” forever more, and all the world watched as Nelson Mandela became South Africa’s first democratically elected President a few months later.
From Disney World’s International Festival to the New Orleans Jazz Fest, from Harlem to Hampton, Memphis and Cincinnati, and from Philadelphia’s Penn’s Landing to Washington, DC’s Duke Ellington School of Performing Arts, Sharon Katz & The Peace Train thrilled audiences of all ages with the unstoppable beat and amazing harmonies of South African music and dance.
In 2013, we celebrated the 20th anniversary of The Peace Train’s original ride through South Africa to help Nelson Mandela break down the barriers that apartheid had created and to usher in the country’s first democratic election.
“When Voices Meet” is the film being made to tell the story of The Peace Train and the impact it has made in the lives of the participants and the country in the 20 years since liberation. Watch for it later this year.
The legendary Abigail Kubeka, of Miriam Makeba’s group The Skylarks, recorded with Sharon on her latest CD and toured America to share the songs and stories of the anti-apartheid struggle.