Longtime Mt. Airy singer/songwriter Sharon Katz, who will be performing selections from her new album, “Desert Air,” in Wayne on Aug. 9, is so much more than an outstanding musician.

Katz is also a renowned peace activist who grew up in South Africa, and takes frequent trips back to her homeland. She performs with her band The Peace Train in concerts throughout the U.S. and Africa and has performed on CDs with Elton John, Paul Simon, Sting, Tina Turner and Luciano Pavarotti.

But Katz is also known throughout Africa for her close connection to Nelson Mandela, the iconic statesman and anti-apartheid revolutionary who became the first president of South Africa in 1994.

In 1994, Katz and her band played a concert for 90,000 people in a South African stadium in the last political rally before the election of Nelson Mandela as the nation’s first post-apartheid president. “The electricity in the air was so powerful,” Katz told us in a previous interview. “That was a memory to treasure. I don’t think anything will ever match it.”

Katz grew up in the city of Port Elizabeth on the Indian Ocean. The metropolitan area of one million people was only three percent white, but white residents controlled almost all of the wealth and major institutions. Katz’ late parents knew something about repression themselves, however, having fled Russia because of attacks against Jews there, and even as a child Sharon believed in shaking the tree of complacency.

“Even when I was 10 years old,” she said earlier, “I could see everything about the apartheid system was wrong. They imposed a National Christian Education system and discriminated against everyone who didn’t fit their definition of ‘white,’ including Jews.”

A self-taught musician, Sharon earned a degree in music instruction in 1980 from Trinity College London and a master’s in music therapy in 1983 from Temple University. For several years, she practiced music therapy in Philadelphia prisons and mental health facilities. “You can often reach people’s feelings with music that cannot be reached in any other way,” she said.

Katz returned to her homeland and formed the nation’s first multiracial band and choir, but they were threatened with death if they put on any concerts. Marilyn Cohen, Katz’s wife who served as mental health director of the city of Philadelphia in the late 1980s, left in 1992 to live in South Africa and join Katz’s crusade to transform that nation through the power of music.

“At times we were literally dodging bullets,” Cohen said in an earlier interview. “People kept telling Sharon she would never be able to put on a multiracial concert, but if you say that to Sharon, she just becomes more determined to do it.”

Katz and Cohen have been married for 11 years and together for 34. “Marilyn has been the driving force of The Peace Train project on several continents!” Katz told the Local last week. “She continues to be my rock and a role model for all of us in the group as a brilliant producer and manager.”

The title ”Desert Air” and the songs on the new album by Katz and The Peace Train were inspired by the time Katz has spent in the town of Todos Santos in southern Baja California, Mexico.

“The combination of emotions and natural beauty as well as cumulative experiences with The Peace Train and in general in my life inspired me tremendously for all of these songs,” she said.

One reviewer called the new album “a delicious global fusion of harmonies and rhythms from their home country and influences from their latest adventures in the USA and Mexico.”

The Aug. 9 concert in Wayne, where Katz and The Peace Train will perform selections from the album, is scheduled for 7 p.m. at 118 North, a restaurant, bar and live music venue on the Main Line.

“When I was invited to perform at the famed 118 North, owned and operated by Philadelphia area music producers who have been my friends for years, I jumped at the opportunity to have the album release at this great venue,” Katz said. I am literally counting the days to the concert.”

Prior to the 118 North concert, Katz and The Peace Train will perform Aug. 2 at the annual African Cultural Association of North America Festival at Penn’s Landing. Katz will perform with Philadelphia musicians she has worked with for many years, some of whom have traveled the world with her, including Wendy Quick on vocals, Jan Jeffries on drums, Richard Hill Jr. on bass and Suzzette Ortiz on keyboards.

For more information, visit sharonkatz.com. You can download the new album at sharonkatzthepeacetrain.hearnow.com/desert-air. Len Lear can be reached at lenlear@chestnuthilllocal.com.