Sharon Burch sings in both English and Navajo. She is an advisor for First Nations Composer Initiative
Sharon Burch, born of a Navajo mother and a German father, was raised in the traditional Navajo culture in New Mexico and spoke only Navajo until she began school. After high school in California, she attended Navajo Community College in Tsaile, Arizona and later the University of New Mexico. Sharon Burch's music is the contemporary expression of traditional Navajo ways and living. Many of Sharon's songs are in the beautiful Navajo language and capture the sacredness of Mother Earth and Father Sun and the importance of family and place to the Diné. [1]
Album "Colors of My Heart" (1999) (P)(C) Canyon Records 1999 CR-536 (There may be many more.)
Sharon Burch is mentioned on archive.org and Washington Post for giving a concert at the 32nd Smithsonian Folklife Festival as early as 1998 in Washington Post, June 26, 1998, author Larry Fox, and in PDF/printed material at Archive.org
The concert was held at the 32nd annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival, at the National Mall, Washington D.C. Some of the artists featured on a new Smithsonian Folkways recording of Native women's music will be presented in a concert that celebrates both the release of the album and the half-century that Folkways Records and Smithsonian Folkways Recordings have been introducing wider audiences to community-based music. The program will feature Sharon Burch (Navajo singer/songwriter), Joy Harjo and Poetic Justice (contemporary poetry and jazz), Judy Trejo and her daughters (Paiute traditional songs), Mary Youngblood (Aleut-Seminole flute player), Tzo'kam (traditional Salish songs), and Sissy Goodhouse (Lakota traditional singer).