Now in its 10th year, The Songwriter's Beat is New York's premiere performing songwriter series. Hosted and founded by singer-songwriter Valerie Ghent, four up-and-coming songwriters perform new material in a supportive and intimate atmosphere.

This month's Songwriter's Beat features Tommy Mandel, Kati Mac, Jon Albrink, Pia Zierhut, and special guest Alan Starr from the Dublin band DC Tempest.

Every third Wednesday of the month, four songwriters of varying musical styles perform original songs and are encouraged to try out their newest material and arrangements. The series culminates in a week-long festival each July, featuring performers from throughout the years.

Founded in 2000, The Songwriter's Beat has presented over 280 songwriters from the Tri-State area as well as visiting songwriters from other parts of the United States, Canada, France, the UK, Ireland, Australia, South Africa, Cuba and Japan.

Join us!

The Songwriter's Beat is honored to receive support from The ASCAP Foundation.

 Cover $10   songwritersbeat.com ,  valghent.com

The Double Sharps: Dan Lipsitz, sax; Pierre Piscitelli, piano; Nathaniel Schroeder, bass; Francis DiNoto, drums.

Jim Bartow, is ever mindful of his audience. We get the words of his poets, wrapped lovingly in Jim’s remarkable renditions- Kenneth P. Neilson, Director, All Seasons Art

Hilliard Greene, Intense. Powerful. Versatile. Not for the faint-hearted,… Greene showed us how it’s done- Bass World, Journal for the International Society of Bassists

Golda Solomon, Poet Solomon… think of it as Jack Kerouac revisiting the mile high city and grabbing a sandwich at the New York deli while in town- Norman Provizer, Rocky Mountain News

The Double Sharps, They are respectful and mindful of the masters and find their own voice in the classic standards and originals they compose and play- Golda Solomon, Poet and Host, Po’Jazz at Cornelia Street Café

Nika Di Liberto Sabasteanski, I have watched and heard this young poet, now young woman, grow. Her words are wisdom!- Golda Solomon, Poet and Host, Po’Jazz at Cornelia Street Café

doors open at 5:30; Jazz begins at 5:45

$15 ($10 students with ID) includes one drink (cash only)

 Cover $15 (includes one house drink)

Wendy is a versatile singer whose voice lends itself easily to any genre. A Washington native, she earned her Bachelors degree in Vocal Performance from Pacific Lutheran University, and completed her Masters in Jazz Studies at New England Conservatory in Boston. She has had the opportunity to study with teachers in varied disciplines; Marcia Baldwin, Dominique Eade, John McNeil, and Sharla Nafziger, and to perform in many capacities; from big band to symphony orchestra, and jazz quartet to chamber ensemble.

In addition to her individual musical pursuits, Wendy is also an active church musician. She is a frequent guest vocalist with the St. Bartholomew’s Choir as part of their Summer Festival of Sacred Music and Great Music Series. She held a section leader and soloist position in the Compostela Choir at St. James’ Church for two years, and also sang with the choirs of St. Luke in the Fields and St. Mary the Virgin. Wendy currently holds the alto position in the choir at St. Thomas More Church, and maintains a busy freelance choral schedule.
 Cover $10   www.wendygilles.com

Arrive before 6 pm to sign up.

Dada Poetry Salon

 Cover $7 (includes one house drink)

All musicians who have so far recorded for ScienSonic Laboratories will be present for this very special evening of "Experiential Music for Adventurous Listeners": Scott Robinson, saxophones, winds, theremin and sonic devices; Julian Thayer, bass; Marshall Allen, alto sax, flute and electronic valve instrument; Kevin Norton, vibraphone, drums and percussion; Pat O'Leary, bass, cello, sonic toys and devices; Sharon Robinson, flute and wind machine
 Cover $15

10:30PM Saxophonist/composer Jeremy Udden NEC '02 B.M. '03 M.M. the "gifted alto saxophonist and composer with the gorgeous tone" (JazzTimes) will perform music from his highly acclaimed new CD Plainville. Joining Udden are Brad Shepik (guitar), Pete Rende (pump organ/rhodes), Rob Jost (bass) and RJ Miller (drums). Udden has found a voice in a variety of contexts, including the Grammy nominated Either/Orchestra, throughout his two recordings as a leader for the Fresh Sound New Talent label, and on over 20 recordings as a sideman. http://www.jeremyudden.com/

This performance is part of a week-long New York celebration of NEC’s first-in-the-nation Jazz Studies program. With a faculty that has included 5 MacArthur "genius" grant winners and 4 NEA Jazz Masters, and alumni that reads like a who’s who of jazz, NEC’s Jazz Studies Program has spawned numerous Grammy winning composers and performers. As Mike West writes in JazzTimes: “Four decades after its founding, NEC’s jazz studies department is among the most acclaimed and successful in the world; so says the roster of visionary artists that have comprised both its faculty and alumni.”
 Cover $10

Suzanne Cleary's third book, Beauty Mark, will be published next year by Carnegie Mellon University Press, which previously published her books Keeping Time and Trick Pear. Winner of a Pushcart Prize, she has recent poems in Poetry London and the 2009 edition of Best American Poetry.

Lynn Wagner’s poems have appeared in Shenandoah, subtropics, Rhino and 5AM and other literary journals. She has been awarded fellowships to the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts by the Vira I. Heinz Foundation. Lynn received an MFA from the University of Pittsburgh, where she was awarded the Academy of American Poets prize. A newcomer to Colorado, she has taught youth classes at Lighthouse Writers Workshop and maintains a web presence at http://lynnwagner.pbwiki.com/.

Sean Nevin is assistant director of the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University. He is the recipient of a Literature Fellowship in Poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts as well as fellowships from the Eastern Frontier Education Foundation and the Arizona Commission on the Arts. He is the author of A House That Falls, winner of the 2005 Slapering Hol Press Chapbook Prize, and Oblivio Gate, selected for the Crab Orchard Award Series First Book Prize (Southern Illinois University Press, 2008).

B. K. Fischer’s poems have appeared recently in FIELD, The Hopkins Review, and Literary Mama, and have also appeared in The Paris Review, Boston Review, Ekphrasis, Southwest Review, and other journals. Her manuscript The Anatomy Archives was a finalist for the 2009 National Poetry Series and the FIELD Prize, and she was nominated for Best New Poets 2009. She is the author of a critical study, Museum Mediations: Reframing Ekphrasis in Contemporary American Poetry (Routledge, 2006) and teaches at the Hudson Valley Writers’ Center.

 Cover $7 (includes one house drink)

The distance between modern post-bop sounds and free jazz suffused with high-tech experimentalism narrows significantly on the new CD Quare from André Matos, a dazzling young guitarist and Portuguese native now living in the United States. Released on Greg Osby’s Inner Circle Music, Quare is Matos’s third album as a leader, and it features his spectral playing in various musical settings with accompaniment from some of the top young jazz artists on the scene today.

“Matos is a free thinker. He combines modern jazz with the attitude, mood and tinge of modern rock and creates what could be termed "alternative" jazz…. Both in writing and execution, Matos takes more than literal ownership…”
– Phil DiPietro, All About Jazz

This performance is part of a week-long New York celebration of NEC’s first-in-the-nation Jazz Studies program. With a faculty that has included 5 MacArthur "genius" grant winners and 4 NEA Jazz Masters, and alumni that reads like a who’s who of jazz, NEC’s Jazz Studies Program has spawned numerous Grammy winning composers and performers. As Mike West writes in JazzTimes: “Four decades after its founding, NEC’s jazz studies department is among the most acclaimed and successful in the world; so says the roster of visionary artists that have comprised both its faculty and alumni.”
 Cover $10   www.andrematosmusic.com

BEL KAUFMAN grew up in Russia, learned English at age twelve, and went on to a distinguished literary, academic, and teaching career. She has won many awards for her writing and public speaking, addressing educators and students here and abroad. She is the granddaughter of the celebrated Yiddish humorist Sholem Aleichem.

ISAIAH SHEFFER is a co-founder and Artistic Director of Symphony Space where he directs and hosts the popular public radio series, SELECTED SHORTS:A CELEBRATION OF THE SHORT STORY, as well as the THALIA FOLLIES POLITICAL CABARET, and the annual James Joyce extravaganza, BLOOMSDAY ON BROADWAY. As a child, he performed with the great Maurice Schwartz in the Yiddish Art Theatre, and in Yiddish theatre versions of Isaac Bashevis Singer plays. He is the author of the librettos for the musicals THE RISE OF DAVID LEVINSKY, YIDDLE WITH A FIDDLE, and a play about Singer entitled DREAMERS AND DEMONS. During some of his misspent youth he was the English-language announcer on the Yiddish radio station WEVD, where he managed to create the only existing Yiddish Halloween song, "BOO, BOO, HAINT IZ HALLOVEEN".

GEORGE GUIDALL has recorded over 900 unabridged novels. Audiofile Magazine named him one of the original golden voices in the audiobook industry. Guidall’s forty-five year career as a performer includes leading roles in regional theatre and Broadway, an Obie Award for best performance Off-Broadway, and numerous appearances on film and television.

Pianist and accordionist Art Bailey is active in the improvised and world music scenes, and has appeared with such diverse musical performers as jazz saxophonist Steve Lacy, classical violinist Itzhak Perlman, and renowned bluegrass musician Del McCoury. Art has been the pianist with the Klezmer Conservatory Band since 1998, contributing new arrangements to the band’s repertoire and making stage and television appearances worldwide.

Canadian violist and violinist Tanya Kalmanovitch operates at the intersection of contemporary jazz, classical music and free improvisation. Since moving to New York in 2004, she has fast made a name for herself in the city's jazz and improvised music scene. In 2004 she was named "Best New Talent"by All About Jazz New York, and Time Out New York described her as "the Juilliard-trained violist who's been tearing up the scene."
 Cover $10   www.georgeguidall.com/

Phil comes from a noted musical family. His father, Louis Fried, was an original cast member in several Broadway shows including Brigadoon and Carousel. His cousin was the noted composer Isadore Freed. Second to music is Phil's passionate interest in literature. He has written several texts and librettos including the text for his opera, The Dungeon of Esmeralda, and an adaptation of Hemingway's short story, “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” In 2006 he received a Centennial Commission from the Minnesota Orchestra. He was a 2008 McKnight Foundation Fellow grantee. Most recently Phil became the composer in residence and core member for Opera Bob, a new music collaborative in Minnesota.

As a Jazz musician, Phil was a founding member of the New York Artists Collective. Performing with Ray Nance was his first professional jazz experience in the 1970's. He has performed all over the United States. More info: http://philfried.com and http://Operabob.org

Anna Brandsoy’s recent operatic roles include Mimi (La Bohème), the Governess (The Turn of the Screw), Donna Elvira (Don Giovanni), Elle (La Voix Humaine), Giulietta (Les Contes d’Hoffmann), Lady Billows (Albert Herring), and Ariadne (Ariadne auf Naxos). She spent two summers training and performing in Europe, the first at the world-famous Mozarteum and the second in the Tyrolean region of Austria, and holds a D.M.A. in voice performance from the University of Minnesota. This summer, she performed at the Minnesota Fringe Festival in “Opera Bob’s” premiere show, Secret’s Revealed! In addition to opera, Ms. Brandsoy is an avid recitalist, recently featured in Samuel Barber’s Hermit Songs, a new arrangement of Maurice Ravel’s Scheherezade, and as the soprano soloist in Poulenc’s Gloria with Exultate Orchestra. Dedicated to the performance of new music, she has had the pleasure of premiering several of Phil Fried’s pieces.

Jill Dawe is a native of Newfoundland and a graduate of Eastman School of Music. Active as a soloist, chamber musician and teacher, she lives and works in the Twin Cities and is an associate professor of music at Augsburg College in Minneapolis.

Tonight's performance represents the many sides of Phil as a free improvisor and as a composer. Along with improvisation I present three different styles of my notated vocal music; my Operas and complete song cycles are not included.
Serious and serial songs
Cabaret songs in popular style
Humorous Arias composed in the style of other composers.

"After working 10 years on my opera The Snow's of Kilimanjaro I was in the mood for funny.

I found my voice as a solo instrumentalist performing on an upright electric bass. The sound is amplified/unamplified, processed/unprocessed, and mixed via touch and foot pedals in real time. The “soundscapes” I create are explore many angles of experimental music. My approach is non tonal, as in my composed music, but its effect is more intimate and personal. It was critical for me that my first explorations into non-extended tonal materials were with jazz music. I have come full circle and have returned to improvisation after the careful study of composed music and classical string bass technique." -Phil Fried
 Cover $10

"Vincent Chancey is the greatest living French horn player in Jazz"
-Ron Sweetman, CKCU-FM   www.vincentchancey.com