Sharon Silverstein and The Peace Project

All ages will be inspired when listening to the motivational album “Alive” by Sharon Silverstein and The Peace Project. A wonderful vocalist, Silverstein proves her ability to sing with the grace and style of enthusiastic stimulation with the intonation of folk rock. The title track “Alive” is fresh and energetic in tempo, with nice harmonies complementing the lead vocals. Listeners will feel joy when hearing the spiritual lyrics on “Living At Peace” as they gently move the body and soul. “Unique Me” is a bouncy blues tune with colorful piano fills and spirited drum beats. The entire album is appealing as tempos gracefully shift from upbeat to a gentle ballad. “Alive” is filled with ideal, uplifting mood music, and fans of upbeat folk rock will definitely enjoy this album.
-RadioIndy Music Reviewer Team
- RadioIndy Music Reviewer Team

Ms. Silverstein and The Peace Project touch the very soul, conveying ideas about unconditional love, grace and the great human potential all humans have for true wisdom. Ms. Silverstein’s lyrics hit you at a deep, almost subconscious level. Her resonate voice — a little bit Sheryl Crow, a touch Grace Slick and a smidgeon Janis Joplin — gives her music a transformational quality. Anyone who listens to her CD “Alive” gets a kind of Living At Peace spiritual boot camp. Songs like “Unique Me”, ”Begin With The End In Mind” and “It’s All Good” fit in perfectly with the visualization and manifestation “movement” — what used to be called “the power of positive thinking” but has found a mega-audience through the book and film “The Secret”.
Susan Van Dongen – Courier News 2008
- The Courier News- 2008

Families can enjoy an interactive musical concert with songs from around the world at the Peace Program Tuesday at the Warren Township Library.
Sharon Silverstein of Living at Peace will share music from India, Africa, Tibet, Ireland, Israel, and some original songs. The program, running from 7 p.m. to 7:45 p.m., is almost filled, but there is still room for families with children ages 4 and older to sign up. People can register online or by calling the library at 908-754-5554, ext 29.
"She has a beautiful voice," said Antonette K. D'Orazio, Head of Youth Services at the library.
For children, Silverstein tries to make the experience as interactive as possible, bringing items representing different cultures and interspersing stories as well as "call and response" songs.
"I try and grab something from each country, from each culture that I'll be singing the song about," said Silverstein, of Hillsborough. "Tying it into something visual and show where the song came from and why the song is being played and why the song serves a purpose in that culture." Silverstein's program ties in nicely with the library's summer reading program theme, "One World, Many Stories."
After graduating college, Silverstein used to play rock music in bars. Later, she had a "spiritual awakening" when she attended life-success seminars and her musical style and message changed. Silverstein facilitates drumming circles for health and wellness, teambuilding and offers behavioral instruction to help families have deeper and stronger relationships. She also performs at various events including libraries and schools. "I was moving toward the realization of peace within myself," she said of her awakening. "My perception of the world changed so drastically that I had to start reflecting that into what I would do in the world." "In almost every culture, there's a song about peace," Silverstein continued. "People have written these songs in order to have peace." She has been performing for 26 years for children and adults, but her peace concert is something new for her with a more interactive and educational format for younger audiences. "If we're going to really have world peace, you have to start helping kids understand how important that is," she said. "Hopefully they can bring that into
the world as an adult."
Silverstein, who has a 14-year-old son, also enjoys performing for the younger set for her own artistic freedom.
Arts,
"You can get as creative as you like with children," said Silverstein. "It's just so neat to see how they learn so quickly about the different aspects of music. Their hearts and their minds are so open to learning."
- Warren Patch

PEACE TRAIN –Princeton Packet Feb. 2008
MAYBE it's the ingenious, methodical way Tim Robbins' character chips away at the wall of his cell and finally escapes in The Shawshank Redemption. Perhaps it's the calculated revenge that exacted on the prison authorities. Or maybe it's the simple but inspirational line "get busy living, or get busy dying." People love the movie.
Singer-songwriter Sharon Silverstein was particularly taken by that line and incorporated it into "Get Busy," one of the 10 songs on her latest self-released CD, Alive.
Ms. Silverstein says that one line struck a Canadian fan struggling with alcoholism especially hard. The woman was so invigorated by the lyrics that she programmed "Get Busy" on her computer to wake her up in the morning, and start her day on a positive note. "She said that song actually motivated her toward sobriety," Ms. Silverstein says. "I was honored that she listened to the song and got the message. That's all any artist would want from his or her writing — to move people to a deeper level."
Drawing from the writings and teachings of such life-changing teachers as Deepak Chopra, Eckhart Tolle, Carlos Castaneda and Wayne Dyer, Ms. Silverstein's lyrics bit you at a deep, almost subconscious level. Her resonant voice — a little bit Sheryl Crow, a touch Grace Slick and a smidgen Janis Joplin — gives her music a transformational quality.
Ms. Silverstein and The Peace Project will be performing at the Small World Coffee House in Princeton Feb. 7.
Although she loves singing and playing, bringing a kernel of wisdom and transformation to her audience of all ages is her true passion. A graduate of the Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers, Ms. Silverstein taught elementary and middle school music in a variety of central New Jersey's public schools. She decided to make a life change and launched her business Living At Peace with the intention of bringing positive thinking to young people, facilitating new ways of parent-child and teacher-child interaction. The overall mission has been to empower people of all ages to live life with greater self-awareness and a healthy mindset. Workshops, drum circles and, of course, concerts are just a few things she has created to help children and adults live their lives authentically, with enthusiasm and high self-esteem.
Now, anyone who listens to Alive gets a kind of Living At Peace musical boot camp. The recording was a labor of love and a real investment of time and capital.
"It's been out for a year now but I'm taking the time to promote it and give it its due," Ms. Silverstein says. "I've played at a few different places, Unity and Unitarian Universalist churches, yoga studios. People connected with the 'new consciousness,' if you want to call it that, seem to be really liking the message of the music."
Songs like "Unique Me," "Begin with the End in Mind" and "It's All Good" fit in perfectly with the visualization and manifestation "movement"— what used to be called "the power of positive thinking" but has found a mega-audience through the book and film The Secret.
"I want to motivate (listeners) toward an awareness, awakening and knowing our true nature," Ms. Silverstein says. "Even if it looks like fear at the moment, all of our actions are motivating us toward love. A lot of artists try to teach these lessons through their music. I recently listened to John Lennon's “Imagine” and it really puts everything into a nut shell, the idea that religions and countries don't divide us, the hope that peace will prevail on the planet."
The Hillsborough resident is gratified to hear that her voice conjures Ms. Slick, Ms. Crow and Ms. Joplin, but she says the woman she would most love to sing with is Joan Baez. "I've been listening to her since my early childhood," Ms. Silverstein says. "I love that she's been on the forefront as a peace activist for so long. Lately I've been listening to Snatam Kaur, a Sikh artist. Her voice is so angelic and moving, it's the opposite of the roughness of Janis Joplin."
Ms. Silverstein deliberately set an intention to perform at Small World.
"I want people to hear the music and expand as they listen," she says. "My hope is that they'll hear something different in the lyrics that will awaken something in them, uplift them and motivate them to do whatever they desire in their lives, inspire them to be more than what they think they can be."
-Susan Van Dongan, Princeton Packet Feb 2008



- Princeton Packet, Princeton, NJ

All ages will be inspired when listening to the motivational album “Alive” by Sharon Silverstein and The Peace Project. A wonderful vocalist, Silverstein proves her ability to sing with the grace and style of enthusiastic stimulation with the intonation of folk rock. The title track “Alive” is fresh and energetic in tempo, with nice harmonies complementing the lead vocals. Listeners will feel joy when hearing the spiritual lyrics on “Living At Peace” as they gently move the body and soul. “Unique Me” is a bouncy blues tune with colorful piano fills and spirited drum beats. The entire album is appealing as tempos gracefully shift from upbeat to a gentle ballad. “Alive” is filled with ideal, uplifting mood music, and fans of upbeat folk rock will definitely enjoy this album.
-Diane And the RadioIndy.com Reviewer Team

- RadioIndy Music

Living At Peace
Sharon Silvertsein and the Peace Project present an evening of part meditation, part concert
By Susan Van Dongen
Posted: Friday, November 27, 2009 8:05 PM EST

BRINGING Kirtan chanting to the public is a natural step in the evolution of Sharon
Silverstein’s singing and songwriting career. For years she has shared the healing power of music with people from all walks of life — young students, older adults, spiritual seekers and corporate executives.

As a yogini — an avid practitioner of yoga who happens to be a female — Ms. Silverstein often combined chanting with her yoga practices. She says she was introduced to Kirtan chanting, a kind of sonic yoga that is part of the ancient Indian tradition of Bhakti yoga, at various studios in the area and was immediately drawn to it.

”As soon as I start any kind of chanting, I am absorbed into the vibration,” she says. “It’s a way for me to come to a state of stillness and meditate through something I love — music. With Kirtan, the chants have the healing vibration built into them. But then, being able to add my own musical influences to accompany the mantras, makes it a real creative effort that I love.”

Ms. Silverstein and the Peace Project will present The Bliss of Kirtan, an evening of Kirtan chant, at the Center for Relaxation and Healing in Plainsboro Dec. 5. The newly re-configured Peace Project features Ms. Silverstein on vocals, guitar and harmonium, Joni Knapp on tabla, Darlene Popkey on flute and harmonium, and Marie Soffel on djembe and ubang.

The Hillsborough resident stresses that participants don’t have to be spiritual devotees, “yoga types” or even good singers to enjoy Kirtan. And even though the mantras are in Sanskrit, you don’t have to know the language to sing along. The words are simple and repetitive, and since they carry the actual essence of the mantra (or prayer, if you will), you just let them wash over you and eventually absorb them.

For we New Jerseyans, trying to maintain our sanity in this crowded state with its rush-rush culture, Kirtan is a delightful way to free the “monkey mind” of its ongoing and often negative chatter.
”The instruments and melody create a vibrational meditation that can carry us effortlessly to stillness,” Ms. Silverstein says.
“When we chant the mantras, repeating them over and over, the mind starts to relax and calm down, and creates a way for the heart to open, because the mind doesn’t have anything else to do. It stills the mind and awakens us to our true nature.

”It’s actually better if we don’t know what the Sanskrit words are,” she adds. “The mind has less to deal with. In Sanskrit, the words equal the vibrational frequency. In other words, ‘shanti’ doesn’t mean peace, vibrationally it is peace. When you chant
‘shanti,’ you sympathetically vibrate ‘peace’ to you. It’s really just revealing the peace within you. That’s why the chants are so powerful.”

The acoustic instrumentation provided by the Peace Project makes the evening of Kirtan a combination of a meditation session and a concert, although there is no clapping between the chants. ”We sit in silence for a couple of minutes between the chants, and there’s this stillness that’s so beautiful, you can feel within you what has been transformed,” Ms. Silverstein says.

The singer-songwriter, whose voice falls somewhere between Sheryl Crow and Grace Slick, has been bringing her transformational music to Delaware Valley audiences for 25 years. A Rutgers graduate, Ms. Silverstein left a lengthy career as a music teacher in the New Jersey school system to found Living At Peace, with the vision to help create a world “where people can feel unconditional love for themselves and others,” she writes on the company’s Web site.

In addition to being a singer-songwriter, Ms. Silverstein facilitates drumming circles for health and wellness, teambuilding, community and cooperative events. She uses a combination of drumming circles, her original songs and motivational speaking to
help families and communities have deeper, stronger relationships.

A native of New Jersey, Ms. Silverstein has performed at the Philadelphia Society for Art, Literature and Music, the New York City Marathon, the New Life Expo in New York, John and Peter’s in New Hope, Pa., and the Paul Robeson Center for the Arts in Princeton, as well as many other venues and yoga centers throughout the tri-state area.

”I’m really into sound healing so leading Kirtan is a natural extension to the drum circles, using vibration as a healing modality,” Ms. Silverstein says. “And although I loved my old group, I’m really happy with the new group. Things just fell into place with these musicians. People have told us, ‘we feel the love coming from you all,’ and for the kind of music we’re doing, it feels right. It’s good to be in a group that is so heart-centered.”
- Princeton Packet, Princeton NJ