Downtown music
Downtown music is a subdivision of American music, closely related to experimental music, which developed in downtown Manhattan in the 1960s. History. The scene the term describes began in 1960, when Yoko Ono, one of the early Fluxus artists, opened her loft at 112 Chambers Street, in a part of Lower Manhattan later named Tribeca, to be used as a performance space for a series curated by La Monte Young and Richard Maxfield. Prior to this, most classical music performances in New York City occurred "uptown" around the areas that the Juilliard School at Lincoln Center and Columbia  University would soon occupy. Ono's gesture led to a new performance tradition of informal performances in nontraditional venues such as lofts and converted industrial spaces, involving music much more experimental than that of the more conventional modern classical series Uptown. Spaces in Manhattan that supported Downtown music from the 1960s on included the Judson Memorial Church, The Kitchen, Experimental Intermedia, Roulette, the Knitting Factory, Dance Theater Workshop, Tonic, the Gas Station, the Paula Cooper Gallery, and others. Brooklyn Academy of Music has also shown a predilection for composers from the Downtown scene. Character. Downtown music is not distinguished by  any particular principle, but rather by what it does not do: it does not confine itself to the ensembles, performance tradition, and musical rhetoric of European classical music, nor to the commercially defined conventions of pop music. The only thing that all Downtown music might be said to have in common is that, at least at the time of its original appearance, it was too bizarre – by dint of excessive length, stasis, simplicity, extemporaneity, consonance, noisiness, pop influence, vernacular reference, or other purported infraction – to have been considered "serious" modern music by proponents of "uptown" music. Another generalization one could  point to is an embrace of the creative attitudes of John Cage, though this is not universal; Zorn in particular has downplayed his influence. Some Downtown music, particularly that of Philip Glass, Steve Reich, John Zorn, and Morton Feldman, has subsequently become widely acknowledged within the more mainstream history of music. Varieties. More than a continuous scene, Downtown music has resembled a battlefield on which, from time to time, various groups have reigned ascendant. In chronological order of dominance, the following movements have been prominent Downtown: The above list of movements and idioms is far from exhaustive – in particular, it  omits the continuous history of electronics in Downtown music, which have tended toward process-oriented and interactive music rather than fixed compositions. The history of sound installations should be taken into account, along with the more recent advent of DJing as an art form. Likewise, despite its origin in New York musical politics, "Downtown" music is not solely specific to Manhattan; many major cities such as Chicago, San Francisco, even Birmingham, Alabama have alternative, Downtown music scenes. One could say that, if, when a composer gets played in New York City, it's likely to be at a Downtown space , then they can be called a Downtown composer, regardless of primary residence. Related terms. There is a considerable overlap between Downtown music and what is more generally called experimental music, especially as that term was defined at length by composer Michael Nyman in his influential book "Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond". Nyman opposes the term to avant-garde, as generally being American/British versus Continental, experimental music being more open to process, surprises, and accidents and less focused on the artistic personality. In this respect, as a general descriptive, and without reference to any particular scene, experimental and Downtown have  sometimes been used synonymously. Another, even more coextensive term is new music, which took on currency following the "New Music New York" festival presented by The Kitchen in 1979, which visibly showcased the music referred to as Downtown; the term remained in widespread use during the years of the New Music America festival (1979–1990). Due to its obvious and inconvenient applicability to many types of music, use of "new music" as describing a specific type of contemporary composition has fallen off in recent years. References. Notes Sources