Once a month, visitors to the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia (MCA) may find themselves stopping for something other than the art. Among the usual flow of people moving from one room to the next, a small group of Sydney Conservatorium of Music (SCM) students has set up to play three sets for whoever happens to be passing.

It’s not your typical venue for a group of music students to play in – gallery-goers who came for the art may never have set foot in a recital hall or music venue, and that’s exactly the point of a new partnership between the Conservatorium and the MCA. Students from the Music Specialist Creative Project have been performing live in the Museum as part of their MCA Late series once a month, year-round.

Students from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in Connections: MCA x Tate, 2026. Photo © MCA/Lisa Yoon

The partnership grew out of my performance of Julius Eastman’s Femenine at the MCA last year, during Julie Mehretu’s exhibition. Afterwards, I began meeting regularly with the MCA team over coffee to talk about ways to build more connections with SCM. We realised that the institutions are a short walk apart, both close to Sydney’s Circular Quay, and both seek to challenge notions of what art is and how we can engage with it. The first iteration was situated within the Cerith Wyn Evans exhibition, where students met the artist, heard about the work and performed John Cage’s Four6.

“Performing at the MCA with Dog Tooth was a memorable and rewarding experience,” says saxophonist Mina Johansson. “It gave us new ways of thinking about how music can be an extension of visual art. Meeting Cerith and getting a private exhibition of his show before our performance gave us an insight into the intentions of his work, allowing us to explore unconventional sounds and timbres that would complement his light installations. The MCA performance has definitely influenced our sound as a band, as we incorporate elements of that performance into our current compositions.”

Ai Weiwei’s Mushrooms at Sydney’s Museum of Contemporary Art. Photo © Anna Kucera/MCA

This year, the arrangement settled into the Music Specialist Creative Project, the Conservatorium’s fourth-year capstone. Damien Ricketson developed the unit, and it is now coordinated by me and cellist Daniel Yeadon. It asks students from across the disciplines to design and deliver their own creative projects under supervision, and the more interesting groups have featured cross-genre music drawing on a wide variety of influences.

The projects work towards the New Creatives Festival at SCM, but because the unit exists to facilitate real-world experiential learning, the MCA offers a chance to test the new works in public. The audience has no obligation to listen, and the MCA has encouraged the groups to show works in progress and experiment, in keeping with the nature of the space.

“It felt very special to be performing in such a prestigious space like the MCA,” says Yidaki player, singer and guitarist Jake Magi from the group TBD. “It was powerful to be playing the Yidaki and singing about country in a room surrounded by the artwork of so many amazing mob from all over.”

For the MCA, the partnership forms part of a growing movement among art institutions to bring performance, particularly music, into their public programs. Ai Weiwei’s new installation, Mushrooms, created for the Neil Balnaves Tallawoladah Lawn Commission, recently launched with a performance led by artist and composer Jessica O’Donoghue and The Solis Ensemble.

Further afield, Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall has hosted major music commissions for over a decade, and AGNSW has hosted the Volume Festival in The Tank space. Museums across the spectrum are rethinking galleries as spaces in which to engage audiences in numerous ways, and the MCA’s monthly slot builds on that trend, running alongside the students’ development of their projects throughout the year.

Susan Sheddan, Public Engagement Manager at the MCA, says: “This partnership extends the MCA’s support for contemporary art in many forms, providing a valuable platform for artists, performers and musicians while introducing audiences to emerging talent. It enriches the visitor experience by bringing live performance into the galleries and showcasing contemporary creativity in new ways.”

Students from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in Connections: MCA x Tate, 2026.

What the Museum gets is an unexpected addition to its public program, one that surprises and delights visitors and broadens how they experience contemporary art at the MCA. What the students get is a valuable opportunity to play for people, test new ideas and bring together new music in a low-stakes yet inspiring environment. For those who go on to careers in performance and composition, it’s something a teaching program can’t replicate.

Trumpeter Sara Todner, from the group Dime, describes her experience: “The MCA art space gave our project the opportunity to perform a live improvised set that provided an ambient atmospheric space that reflected the meaning of our project perfectly. Being able to improvise on trumpet alongside electronic elements in such a space gave a deeper level of inspiration to the sounds and textures we wanted to explore, helping shape the trajectory of our set. This was heightened by the natural acoustics and further reflected in the art that surrounded us.”

The projects will culminate at the 2026 New Creatives Festival, held on Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 October at the Conservatorium. It’s a free event open to the public, with 16 groups presenting performances or listening parties showcasing the outcomes of their projects. It’s one of the most exciting events at the Con, with many groups continuing to perform and stay active beyond their time as students.

There are two more opportunities to experience the performances at MCA Late this year, on Thursday 15 October and Thursday 19 November.

For MCA visitors who stop by, it’s a chance to hear, in real time, students discovering their potential in an inspiring setting.

For more information on the Sydney Conservatorium of Music’s 2026 New Creatives Festival (17-18 October), visit this link.

Jeremy Rose is a Lecturer in Music Industry, Sydney Conservatorium of Music.