I found this curious, that in these days in which the erstwhile existence of an Uptown-Downtown split in new music has been forcibly shoved down the memory hole, an organization called The Field is sponsoring a workshop to bring Uptown and Downtown artists together. Their definitions:
For the purposes of this program:
• An Uptown Artist is an artist who lives and/or focuses their creative activities or aesthetic above 110th Street.
• A Downtown Artist is an artist who lives and/or focuses their creative activities or aesthetic south of 14th Street.
Thirty years ago, they could have gotten quite a fistfight going. Oh yeah, I’m only imagining that. Sorry.
And while I’m on terminology, I notice that the term alt-classical for my kind of music has been gaining traction lately at New Music Box and elsewhere. I suggested “alternative classical” for new music in the late 1980s via the Village Voice, and was sneered at. Eventually I gravitated to Postclassical, and so now everyone else is going to alt. I think everyone in new music watches where I go carefully, to make sure they don’t go there.