Eve Egoyan (born 1964) is an

Armenian-Canadian Armenian Canadians (Western Armenian: գանատահայեր, Eastern Armenian: կանադահայեր, ''kanadahayer''; french: Arméno-Canadiens) are citizens and permanent residents of Canada who have total or partial Armenian ancestry. Accor ...

pianist and artist based in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

Early life and education

Egoyan was born in

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

.Hampson, Sara
The Keys to Living
''The Globe and Mail''. 2006-04-08. Accessed: 2022-02-08. Her Armenian parents, Shushan and Joseph, both painters, ran an art gallery/furniture store in

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

Egypt Egypt ( ar, مصر , ), officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, is a transcontinental country spanning the northeast corner of Africa and southwest corner of Asia via a land bridge formed by the Sinai Peninsula. It is bordered by the Mediter ...

, before emigrating to Canada in 1962. Shushan and Joseph settled in Victoria, where they took over a home furnishings/design store. Egoyan's parents didn't own a

piano The piano is a stringed keyboard instrument in which the strings are struck by wooden hammers that are coated with a softer material (modern hammers are covered with dense wool felt; some early pianos used leather). It is played using a keyboa ...

, but as a young girl she began to see the piano as a “safe, private place”. Egoyan took lessons from an elderly neighbour, and then began formal lessons at 11 at the Victoria Conservatory of Music. She went on to study piano in Banff with

György Sebők György Sebők (November 2, 1922 – November 14, 1999) was a Hungarian-born American pianist and professor at the Indiana University's Jacobs School of Music in Bloomington, Indiana, United States. He was known worldwide as a soloist with major ...

, in

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitue ...

with Georg Sava, in

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

with

Hamish Milne Hamish Milne (27 April 1939 – 12 February 2020) was an English pianist known for his advocacy of Nikolai Medtner. Milne studied at Bishop Wordsworth's School in Salisbury and then at the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he taught, and ...

, and at the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

with Patricia Parr, where she completed a master's degree in 1992.

Music career

Egoyan specializes in new works for the piano. Canadian composer

Ann Southam Ann Southam, (4 February 1937 – 25 November 2010) was a Canadian electronic and classical music composer and music teacher. She is known for her minimalist, iterative, and lyrical style, for her long-term collaborations with dance choreogra ...

dedicated several works to Egoyan throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s including: ''Qualities of Consonance'' (1998), ''Figures: Music for Piano and String Orchestra'' (2001), ''In Retrospect'' (2004), and ''Simple Lines of Enquiry'' (2008).Ann Southam
''The Canadian Encyclopedia''. Accessed 2022-02-08. Her 12 solo CDs explore music by composers ranging from

Erik Satie Eric Alfred Leslie Satie (, ; ; 17 May 18661 July 1925), who signed his name Erik Satie after 1884, was a French composer and pianist. He was the son of a French father and a British mother. He studied at the Paris Conservatoire, but was an und ...

Alvin Curran Alvin Curran (born December 13, 1938) is an American composer, performer, improviser, sound artist, and writer. He was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and lives and works in Rome, Italy. He is the co-founder, with Frederic Rzewski and Richard ...

, Michael Finnissy,

James Tenney James Tenney (August 10, 1934 – August 24, 2006) was an American composer and music theorist. He made significant early musical contributions to plunderphonics, sound synthesis, algorithmic composition, process music, spectral music, microto ...

, Martin Arnold,

Linda Catlin Smith Linda Catlin Smith (born 1957 in New York City) is a Canadian composer based out of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. In 2005 she became the second woman to win the Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music. Smith studied composition and theory with All ...

, and Southam. Her most recent album, ''De Puro Amor & En Amor Duro'', features two large-scale works by Spanish-German composer

Maria de Alvear Maria de Alvear (born 1960 in Madrid, Spain) is a Spanish-German composer living in Germany who was born to a Spanish father and German mother. She studied with Mauricio Kagel at the Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln, completing a course in new ...

.Eve Egoyan
Music On Main. Accessed 2022-02-08. In ''Surface Tension'', a piece created in collaboration with media artist

David Rokeby David Rokeby (born in 1960 in Tillsonburg, Ontario) is an artist who has been making works of electronic, video and installation art since 1982. He lives with his wife, acclaimed pianist Eve Egoyan, and daughter, Viva Egoyan-Rokeby, in Toronto, ...

, Egoyan's performance is translated by Rokeby's software into images projected on a screen above the piano. Changes in dynamics, pitch, tone and duration trigger visuals based on natural processes like the motion of planets, the swarming of insects, and water ripples created by a falling pebble.Eve Egoyan and David Rokeby’s Surface Tension
Musicworks. Accessed 2022-02-08. In 2018, Egoyan created ''Solo for Duet'', an integrated mix of sound, image, and unspoken narrative challenging traditional conceptions of piano and pianist.Eve Egoyan
Toronto Arts Foundation. Accessed 2022-02-08. The following year she collaborated with director Su Rynard on a 72-minute portrait film, ''Duet for Solo Piano'', that documents this musical exploration. Egoyan's current focus is composing and performing her own work for augmented piano – an acoustic piano equipped with computer software to extend, expand, and enhance the sound. Egoyan has been the recipient of several accolades including "Best Classical" by ''The Globe and Mail'' (1999) for her first solo CD; one of "Ten Top" classical discs, by ''The New Yorker'' magazine (2009);Ross, Alex
2009: Ten Exceptional Recordings
''The New Yorker''. 2009-12-03. Accessed: 2022-02-08. and "Top Classical Disc of the Year", by ''The Globe and Mail'' (2011).Poole, Elissa
Our verdict is in: This was the year's best music
''The Globe and Mail''. 2011-12-26. Accessed: 2022-02-08. In 2013, she received a Chalmers Arts Fellowship.Eve Egoyan
University of Victoria Music. Accessed 2022-02-08. In 2019, the CBC named her one of the “best 25 Canadian classical pianists of all time”.The 25 best Canadian classical pianists
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Accessed: 2022-02-08. She won the Muriel Sherrin Award from the Toronto Arts Foundation in 2019.Eve Egoyan
Toronto Arts Foundation. Accessed: 2022-02-08. She has performed in Canada, the US, Europe, and Japan, including festivals in Italy (Transart), Austria (

Klangspuren Klangspuren, also Klangspuren Schwaz, subtitled Tiroler Festival für Neue Musik, is an annual festival for contemporary music in Schwaz in Tyrol, founded in 1994. The title literally translates to "traces of sound". It commissioned around 200 or ...

), the UK (Huddersfield Festival), and Vancouver (Modulus Festival). She is a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Canada The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; french: Société royale du Canada, SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bil ...

(FRSC) and has been designated a CMC Ambassador by the

Canadian Music Centre The Canadian Music Centre was founded in 1959 by a group of Canadian composers who saw a need to create a repository for Canadian music. It now holds Canada's largest collection of Canadian concert music, and works to promote the music of its As ...

.Eve Egoyan
University of Victoria Music. Accessed: 2022-02-08. Egoyan is an elected Associate of the

Royal Academy of Music The Royal Academy of Music (RAM) in London, England, is the oldest conservatoire in the UK, founded in 1822 by John Fane and Nicolas-Charles Bochsa. It received its royal charter in 1830 from King George IV with the support of the first Duke of ...

, London, England (ARAM).

Personal life

Egoyan is married to

, a media artist. Her older brother,

Atom Egoyan Atom Egoyan (; hy, Աթոմ Եղոյեան, translit=Atom Yeghoyan; born July 19, 1960) is a Canadian filmmaker. He was part of a loosely-affiliated group of filmmakers to emerge in the 1980s from Toronto known as the Toronto New Wave. Egoyan m ...

, is a Canadian filmmaker.

Discography

Selected solo recordings: * (2016) Maria de Alvear's diptych ''De Puro Amor'' and ''En Amor Duro'' * (2015) "Thought and Desire" (Earwitness Editions and World Edition) * (2013), ''5'' (Centrediscs) * (2011), ''RETURNINGS'', (Centrediscs) * (2009), ''Simple Lines of Enquiry'' (Centrediscs) * (2007), ''Asking'' (Mode Records, New York) * (2006), ''Weave'' (Earwitness Records) * (2005), ''WU'' by Rudolf Komorous (Candereen Records) * (2004), ''The Art of Touching the Keyboard'' (Earwitness Records) * (2001), ''Recoins (Hidden Corners)'' (CBC Records) * (1999), ''thethingsinbetween'' (Artifact Music)

Notes

References

* Sykes, C. (2000). Dreaming into the work: The interpretive piano art of Eve Egoyan. Musicworks, (77), 11–14.
This is how a listener plays: New music pianist Eve Egoyan pays attention to every detail, including the silences
ew Music for Piano: Thethingsinbetween (1999, October 26). National Post, B1,B3. * "Eve Egoyan: musical explorer: ntario Edition, Toronto Star (7 March 2002), H05.

External links

*
CBC Music

Duet for Solo Piano
{{DEFAULTSORT:Egoyan, Eve Canadian women pianists Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Living people University of Toronto alumni University of Victoria alumni 21st-century Canadian pianists 21st-century Canadian women musicians 1964 births 21st-century women pianists