“The Once and Future” combines film, music, laser choreography, and AI in a unique way, creating a captivating journey that explores and questions geographical, physical, and spiritual boundaries, pushing them to new limits. Along the way, the focus turns to Earth, facing the threat of complete destruction, raising questions about the potential future of humanity and the possible locations for it to unfold.
Award-winning director Yeo Siew Hua from Singapore explores these questions in his film, shot in Argentina during the pandemic, using subtle yet compelling visuals that capture and extend Eugene Birman’s congenial and highly virtuosic music. Birman’s composition is interpreted by the ZeMu! Ensemble Berlin, a group of members from the Berliner Philharmoniker conducted by Stanley Dodds, and the Indian librettist and vocal soloist Anandi Bhattacharya, who performs as embodied Artificial Intelligence.
This multimedia work premiered at the Singapore International Arts Festival in 2022 and was repeated a year later at the New Vision Arts Festival in Hong Kong.
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PRESS
„The most stunning and divisive work at the festival… Yeo Siew Hua’s ambitious and multidisciplinary epic that features film, theatre, laser display… and Berliner Philharmoniker’s gorgeous postmodern music composed by Eugene Birman“
Business Times (SG)
„The production does not aim at sensory overload; rather, it sneaks up on the viewer, delivering a string of unexpected pleasures“
Straits Times (SG)
Project 2024/25
Dates upon request
The Once and Future
In ‘The Once and Future,’ an expanded cinema experience is created through combining hi-power laser tracking, cross-over vocal performance, and AI-assisted libretto, with the virtuosic artistry of the Berliner Philharmoniker members and a new film shot in 12K by acclaimed Singaporean director Yeo Siew Hua.
With the participation of the singer Anandi Bhattacharya, the composer Eugene Birman, the conductor Stanley Dodds, the director Yeo Siew Hua, and the ZeMu! Ensemble. The ZeMu! Ensemble is the latest ensemble emerging from the ranks of the world-famous Berliner Philharmoniker, dedicated to pursuing groundbreaking technology and crossover projects with new media in classical music. ‘The Once and Future’ is its debut project.
