Since 2000, Songwriter’s Beat has been one of New York City’s premiere acoustic nights for performing songwriters. Started by New York singer-songwriter Valerie Ghent in December, 2000, Songwriter’s Beat has presented over 400 songwriters from New York City, the Tri-State area, across the USA and Canada, Japan, Australia, the UK, France, Ireland, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Cuba, South Africa and Brazil.

Originally founded to provide a supportive environment for songwriters to try out their newest material, Songwriter’s Beat has grown to include an annual festival, a song contest, numerous benefit concerts and an international network of performing singer-songwriters.

In 2002 Songwriter’s Beat made the front page of the NY Times Metro section with an article about our 9/11 tribute concerts, the first of over fifty benefit concerts held to raise funding and awareness for several nonprofit causes.

In 2005 we founded the annual Songwriter’s Beat Festival, held each July. In 2007, ASCAP invited Songwriter’s Beat to apply for a grant to support its work with up and coming songwriters. This wonderful news allowed for the launch of several Songwriter’s Beat songwriting workshops, among many other benefits of ASCAP’s support.

 In 2010 after 10 successful years at the Cornelia Street Café, Songwriter’s Beat moved to Christopher Street Coffeehouse, in St. John’s Church. As fate would have it, Valerie met Lyndon Harris, co-founder of Christopher Street Coffeehouse, who was looking to expand the presence of songwriters at the Coffeehouse. The Coffeehouse, steadily building a glowing reputation in singer-songwriter circles, presenting such acclaimed songwriters at Pete Seeger and Martyn Joseph, wanted to better utilize the beautiful, spacious yet intimate performance space inside St. John’s Church in Greenwich Village. It was a perfect match!

As Valerie and Lyndon spoke further, they found not only a shared passion for performing songwriters but, to both their amazement, the two realized they had met years before during the 9/11 recovery, when both Lyndon and Valerie had been very involved in the recovery effort after September 11th. (Both Valerie and Lyndon went on to form nonprofit organizations after their 9/11 work – Valerie founded Feel the Music! and Lyndon founded Gardens of Forgiveness.)

On December 3rd, 2010, Songwriter’s Beat celebrated its 10th anniversary at Christopher Street Coffeehouse, and launched its second decade of presenting outstanding performing songwriters – every third Thursday of the month at Christopher Street Coffeehouse. Songwriter’s Beat Concerts continued each month until June 2014. In 2016, Songwriter’s Beat offered its first online concert, broadcasting live from NYC’s acclaimed recording studio, Shelter Island Sound.

Today, Songwriter’s Beat continues to offer songwriting workshops thanks to funding from The ASCAP Foundation. As sadly many live music venues and smaller cafes have closed in Greenwich Village, we now support performing songwriters via our Songwriter’s Beat songwriting workshops. 

Join us! And help us keep original music alive.

Songwriter’s Beat – bringing new songs to life and artists to new audiences. We couldn’t do it without YOU!