Society currently finds itself at an intersection of technology and humanity: as physical forms embedded with Artificial Intelligence systems fulfil an urgent need for previously unimaginable companions, such as robot caregivers, to address the twin challenges of longevity and loneliness.

It is precisely this concept of an inanimate-human companionship that pioneer surgeon Dr Susan Lim, together with her co-creative director, Dr Christina Teenz Tan, explore in Lim Fantasy of Companionship for Piano & Orchestra, composed by Manu Martin. It is hoped that the Fantasy will inspire a discussion about what is life and what is non-life, a topic which no longer just belongs to the confines of medicine but invites the participation of artists, musicians, psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, engineers, politicians and more.

Recorded at Abbey Road Studios, the Lim Fantasy draws inspiration from 15 original songs composed for a proposed musical, ALAN. It unfolds the story of an inanimate, ALAN, and the journey of its soul, twice teleported, from an animate to inanimate and ultimately, into a human - brought to life through the performance of pianist Tedd Joselson, alongside the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by Arthur Fagen, an electric guitar heralding a New World Order and a choral ensemble, London Voices, echoing ‘Synthetic DNA’ as the inanimate undergoes its transformation and pleads, through a solo voice in the final Act, for its soul to be quantum entangled with that of a human; this is after all, a fantasy.

The iconic Belgian-American pianist Tedd Joselson describes the work as “a truly magnificent addition to the realm of piano concerto repertoire… a masterstroke of creative ingenuity, which I am truly delighted and honoured to lead as solo Pianist.”