★★★★½ New Yorkers help launch Sydney’s newest music venue.

You’d be surprised how exciting the secret life of an air conditioner can be.

Sitting in his New York apartment on a hot summer’s day, composer Andrew Norman noticed some curious sounds coming out of the air conditioner, which was most likely being pushed to the max on what was a particularly hot summer’s day.

So he decided to write a work about it, as you do. And the result, Music and Circle, was surprisingly imaginative, opening with a violin playing in the stratosphere, barely audible, and building as other instruments joined the conversation, leading to a full outburst of special sounds and contrapuntal lines and a general feeling of triumphant joy.

Perhaps whatever it was in that air conditioner – a monster perhaps? – had broken free at last.

This highly engaging work was just one of several presented at a new space for contemporary music in the heart of Sydney’s Darlinghurst on Friday night as part of a project co-curated by Elizabeth Jigalin and Lamorna Nightingale, and presented by Backstage.

Six Australian musicians and six New York-based musicians came together and presented top-quality contemporary classical music to a full house.

The space?

Thanks to the initiative of...