Deke Sharon

As of summer 2017 he is series music director for a new competitive choir show on BBC1 called Pitch Battle, as well as appearing on camera each episode providing insight and commentary. He was also the third judge for the season one live finale.

In December 2017 he announced the formation of DCappella, a seven-member contemporary a cappella group launched in 2018 that will tour performing arts centers singing music from classic and contemporary Disney films. He serves as the group's music director, arranger and artistic producer.

The pioneering, first all-a cappella musical on Broadway, In Transit for which he is co-producer and arranged all the music opened at the Circle in the Square Theater on Broadway in December 2016. He started working with the production just after their off-Broadway run five years earlier.

Vocalosity, a live a cappella theatrical concert production with diverse cast, began touring in January 2016 and has performed in 30 states.

In 2016, he joined the California branch of the American Choral Directors Association as the first ever Contemporary A Cappella R&R chair.

In 2016, he became an honorary member of the Barbershop Harmony Society, one of only twenty since 1938, and he was named an honorary member of BYU Vocal Point. In 2017 he was awarded the P.T. Barnum Award for excellence in Entertainment from his alma mater, Tufts University.

He has received two lifetime achievement awards for his work in a cappella: in 2016 for the 25th anniversary of his founding of thee Contemporary A Cappella Society and in 2018, from the A Cappella Music Awards.

In 2016 he launched an a cappella podcast called "Counterpoint" with co-host Robert Dietz and has appeared on other podcasts.

He is known for his ability to replicate a variety of instruments (e.g. trumpet, guitar, flute, violin, muted trumpet, harmonica) with his voice—which he teaches online and via "Singing Instruments" seminars—teaching summer camp for young vocalists, and adjudicating choral festivals around the world. He has worked with many professional vocal groups, including 98 Degrees, The Nylons and Boyz II Men.

He founded and directed a cappella groups at Walt Disney World/Epcot (American Vybe) and Disneyland (Groove 66). In 2013, he created a new professional a cappella ensemble in New Mexico: "Voasis". In 2014 and 2015 in music directed the Sing Off Live tour He created Vocalosity for which he was artistic producer, music director and arranger. They started touring in 2016 and their debut album was released on Universal Classics.

As album producer, he was nominated for a Dove Award in 2012 (Best Contemporary Gospel Album: Committed).

He served on the CASA board for almost twenty years, often as President or Vice President. Acapellablog named him the number-one "a cappella power player to keep an eye on in 2012", and NPR credits him for "making a cappella cool again".

Along with The House Jacks, he sang and performed the 2011 Monday Night Football theme song "Are You Ready for Some Football" with Hank Williams, Jr.

In December 2009, he acted as music director, arranger, coach, and consultant behind the scenes on America's first a cappella reality show competition, titled The Sing-Off, and returned in 2010 as one of the show's producers. He also served as Executive Music Producer on the Dutch Sing Off, Sing Off South Africa and Sing-Off China, including several guest appearances as a judge and performer.

Biographical Information about Deke Sharon can be found in Mickey Rapkin's Pitch Perfect (2008), Joshua Duchan's Powerful Voices (2012) and Alysia Abbott's Fairyland (2013).

Upon graduation in 1991, he moved back to San Francisco, bringing with him a handful of other collegiate a cappella singers to form The House Jacks, a pioneering a cappella group known for its original music and sound, often called "the original rock band without instruments", in part because they were the first a cappella group with a designated vocal percussionist.

A prolific, award-winning vocal music arranger, he has arranged more than 2,000 songs for a wide range of ensembles, including some of vocal music's best-known groups. The Best Arrangement award at the Colorado Harmony Sweepstakes is named after him, and he has won the best arrangement award at the Harmony Sweepstakes several times since 1991. He was named "favorite arranger" in the 2010 A Cappella Community Awards and won "Best Professional Arrangement" in 2019.

In college, he directed the collegiate a cappella group the Tufts Beelzebubs, transforming the group's sound to reflect modern rock, with intricate instrumental vocalizations and the integration of vocal percussion. The 1990–1991 Beelzebubs album Foster Street that he directed musically is credited with the creation of contemporary a cappella sound. Sharon had to audition three times before he was accepted, as he was seen as "overzealous" during a time when a cappella wasn't popular, a fact which was mentioned in the book "Pitch Perfect".. Benji in the Pitch Perfect movies is partially based on Deke Sharon.

The House Jacks have released seven albums (signed to Warner Brothers/Tommy Boy Records in the mid-1990s) and completed several world tours. He has performed with many musicians, including Ray Charles, Crosby, Stills and Nash and James Brown. They have won "Best Pop Rock Album" from the Contemporary A Cappella Society, for "Unbroken" (2004), "Level" (2010), and "Pollen (2014).

In the early 1990s, he co-founded The Best of College A Cappella (BOCA) compilation, which he now produces annually with Varsity Vocals.

Deke Sharon (born December 12, 1967) is an American singer, arranger, composer, director, producer and teacher of a cappella music, and is one of the leaders and promoters of the contemporary a cappella community. He has been referred to as "the father of contemporary a cappella" by some authors.