Concert: Android Aria – Seeds of Prophecy | LEFFEST - Lisboa Film Festival

In this groundbreaking performance, renowned composer-pianist Keiichiro Shibuya collaborates with the technological marvels – an android singer with Artificial Intelligence which he accompanies on the piano. This piece was first presented as an opera at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris in June 2023, promising a musical journey and a glimpse into the future of art and technology.

The mesmerising interplay between the piano played by Shibuya and the beautiful singing voice of an artificially synthesized android is no ordinary duet. With its advanced auditory abilities, the android listens to every note Shibuya plays and responds in real-time to improvised melodies. It also sings several songs that were composed by Shibuya. While some of the lyrics are excerpts of works by the famous novelist Michel Houellebecq and the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, other texts are generated by a GPT artificial intelligence model.

When human creativity meets artificial intelligence there are endless possibilities. In “Android Area”, we are invited to experience the harmony between organic emotion and digital precision and the occasional role reversal between human and android.

Keiichiro Shibuya

Keiichiro Shibuya (1973) is a renowned Japanese composer, musician, and artist with roots in both Tokyo and Paris. His diverse portfolio includes electronic music, piano compositions, operas, film scores, and immersive sound installations. Through his creations, Shibuya delves deep into the intricate relationship between humans and technology, consistently pushing the boundaries of what is possible in the world of music and digital art.

In 2012, Shibuya composed and performed his first opera "Vocaloid opera THE END", which starred the virtual sensation Hatsune Miku. A pioneering endeavour, this opera was a symphony of computer-generated audio and visuals. Elevated by the sartorial elegance of Louis Vuitton and Marc Jacobs, the opera performed at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and has since graced stages worldwide. In 2018, he ventured further into the fusion of art and technology with "Android Opera Scary Beauty", where an AI-equipped humanoid robot took centre stage to sing and conduct an orchestra, and in 2021 he was commissioned by the New National Theatre of Tokyo to compose the grand opera "Super Angels". His passion for blending tradition with technology was further explored in "MIRROR", a piece harmonizing Buddhist monks’ choirs with an orchestra, which was presented at Expo 2020 Dubai. In June 2023, this piece was transformed into a theatrical spectacle and presented at the Théâtre du Châtelet, Paris.

Beyond the stage, Shibuya is an award-winning composer in cinema. His compositions have earned him accolades at the 75th Mainichi Film Awards and the 30th Japan Movie Critics Award for his piano solo in the film Midnight Swan (2020).