Exclusive: Downtown Music Publishing Celebrates 10th Anniversary

Downtown Music Publishing celebrated its tenth birthday Wednesday night (Dec. 6) in New York at the historical landmark Free Public Baths of the City of New York.

The three-story party brought together Downtown’s global leadership for the first time ever under one roof. Staff from New York, Nashville, LA, Tokyo, Amsterdam, London and the soon-to-be-open Paris office converged to celebrate 10 years of Downtown with floors themed to the different regions and many Downtown writers in attendance.

An entire floor was turned into a honky-tonk to celebrate Downtown’s Nashville office, headed by Steve Markland (VP, A&R) since its 2014 founding. Writers Kendell Marvel, Marc Beeson, Sara Haze and “Big Al” Anderson (NRBQ) performed live sets while guests enjoyed hot chicken and Tennessee cocktails.

The Downtown Nashville office staff attended the New York party including Markland, Natalie Osborne (Manager of A&R) and Katie Roth (Creative Assistant).

“It was a thrill to bring a touch of Nashville to New York to celebrate Downtown’s tenth birthday with our full staff, and to hear amazing music performed by some of our finest writers,” Markland said.

Downtown Nashville is celebrating a string of No. 1’s, most recently “Somebody Else Will,” co-written by Kelly Archer and performed by Justin Moore. Under Markland’s guidance, Downtown writers have also written recently-charted country hits for Blake Shelton, Josh Turner, Granger Smith and Cassadee Pope. Downtown’s Nashville office also represents the catalogs of Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson, Rosanne Cash, Natalie Prass and many more.

Founded by Justin Kalifowitz in 2007, Downtown Music Publishing has grown from a staff of two to over 80 based all over the world. Downtown’s tech platform Songtrust has grown since its 2011 launch to manage over 1 million song copyrights composed by over 100,000 unique songwriter clients, and this year expanded its global presence to Europe.