In 2021, to mark the return of its concert activities, the Foundation asked Birman to conceive a commemorative piece, and then commissioned acclaimed Portuguese writer Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida to create a poem Os dias mais longos e os mais curtos ("The Longest Days and the Shortest Days"). With Giorgio Biancorosso, Professor of Music in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Hong Kong, acting as director and dramaturge, the work turned into something revolutionary: half of the Gulbenkian Choir members on stage are projected, and not really there at all.
They describe this work as a "tech cantata", with Birman explaining: "Orchestras and choirs were performing in empty concert halls and streamed to a virtual audience during Covid. We thought: what about when the pandemic is over? That's what this work represents—a reversal of the pandemic scenario, using a virtual choir playing to a live audience."
Biancorosso says the Gulbenkian Choir was first filmed in Lisbon singing Birman's score live against green screens, and the images then digitally recomposed in a high resolution to create a plausible virtual choir.
During Os dias, the virtual choir is projected behind 40 live Gulbenkian singers and the results are remarkable. "We wanted to see how far we could go … The audience doesn't realise that what they've been seeing wasn't real. This had never been done in a concert hall before," Biancorosso says.
But what happens when the illusion is broken and audience members realise they've been tricked? "Many people have applauded because they were so surprised—they thought they were seeing a real choir. One key component in making people believe is sound—the audio and video reinforce one another in this illusion."
Miguel Sobral Cid, Deputy Director of Music at the Gulbenkian Foundation, had been following Birman's vocal, operatic and vocal/tech compositions, and he knew he was the perfect composer to transform Almeida's poem into a work for large choir. Sobral Cid explains that the poem and the large choral work were created during the lockdown, stating: "As it coincided with the pandemic, [Birman] had the idea of playing with presence/absence, and the real/unreal."
