Downtown music is a subdivision of
American music, closely related to
experimental music. The scene the term describes began in 1960, when
Yoko Ono—one of the
Fluxus artists, at that time still seven years away from meeting
John Lennon—opened her loft at 112 Chambers Street 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.