From 4pm (Friday) at Gold Coast’s HOTA, Charlie Chan will start a retrospective of his 40 year canon of work as a virtuoso pianist and composer in a never before attempted concert event.

Titled Supernova, the performance will be broken into ten distinct phases over a little over 24 hours, bringing together a mix of classical, contemporary, jazz and experimental music, as well as meditation, music for children, music for dogs, and music for the whole community.

It will all be played live, all day and night on the HOTA outdoor stage, with audience members invited to sleep over under the stars to enjoy the overnight component.

To set the world record and be able to perform consistently across the 24 hours while incorporating breaks to eat, nap and go to the bathroom, Chan has created an AI known as ChAI – which they’ve taught to compose and perform live music as if it were Charlie themselves, with all of Charlies own nuanced musical style and attributes. ChAI will make its debut at the Supernova concert.

Supernova comes halfway through a record-breaking year for Chan, where they’ve released 52 albums, dropping one album of new solo piano works every Friday to create a collection of more than 600 tracks known as Constellation. In week seven of 52, Charlie broke the record for the most albums ever released by an artist in a single year.

The first two phases of tonight’s performance are free – phase 1 of Supernova starts with Celestial Sounds accompanied by a 45 minute yoga practice, phase 2 from 630pm is family oriented as Charlies takes the audience on a journey through the cosmos.

The Deep Space Sleepover from 930pm to 6am features Chan’s solo piano works that calm and relax the senses with binaural beats to lull the audience to sleep. It’s limited to 30 participants, including a soothing cup of tea and a comfy space to sleep if you bring your own pillow.

Saturday’s performances include a Milky Way Breakfast Festival for families, where audience members are invited to bring their dogs to also enjoy the show. Charlie will perform with by Maree Field and her border collies from the Outback Spectacular, featuring music specifically composed for dogs with melodies using frequencies silent to the human ear but with unique canine appeal.

First Nations Astronomy from 11am with feature guest performer Lann Levine who will tell First Nations stories about the sky while Chan accompanyies him live with an evocative improvised piano soundtrack.

Saturday’s Supernova performance component then rolls out with the phases Capricornia, Solar Winds, Aurora Australia and as the suns sets the closing concert called The Big Bang from 5pm.

The closing concert also features the jazz fusion orchestra the Big Bang Big Band, lead by Chan and featuring his solo piano works reimagined in a variety of jazzidions, rock, r&b, world and funk.