Eve Egoyan / bio

Eve Egoyan / pianist

Eve Egoyan fell in love with the piano at a very young age, visiting her neighbour daily to learn whatever she could about the instrument. Ever since those first moments, playing the piano has been a passion and an adventure. Eve began studying traditional repertoire in her hometown of Victoria, B.C. starting at the Victoria Conservatory with Anne Brayshaw and Winifred Wood then continuing on to the University of Victoria where she studied piano with Eva Solar-Kinderman and introductory courses in contemporary music with Michael Longton. She spent her summers at the Banff Centre with György Sebok. She continued her musical education in Berlin, Germany (DAAD scholarship) and London, England (Commonwealth Scholarship). In 1989 she moved to Toronto to study at the University of Toronto while a resident of Massey College. Here, she reconnected with a community of composers she had studied with in Victoria. Through playing their works, she became passionate about playing music of her own time, connecting to its freshness, its direct invention at the modern piano, and the clarity of playing music by living composers, dealing with a living score. Her reputation as a performer has earned her a dedicated audience who trust her considered programming and her ability to communicate some of the most extraordinary musical voices of her time.

Many composers have written works for her, including John Abram, Martin Arnold, Allison Cameron, Alvin Curran, Maria de Alvear, José Evangelista, Michael Finnissy, Mamoru Fujieda, Anthony Genge, Rudolf Komorous, Jo Kondo, Michael Longton, Juliet Palmer, Stephen Parkinson, James Rolfe, John Mark Sherlock, Linda C. Smith, Ann Southam, Karen Tanaka, James Tenney and Gayle Young. She has appeared as a solo recitalist in Canada, England, France, Germany, Portugal, Japan, and the U.S.. Eve has released seven critically acclaimed solo discs, six of works by living composers and one disc of works by Erik Satie. Her most recent disc, "Simple Lines of Enquiry", a one-hour long piano solo by Ann Southam, was selected as one of 2009's ten top discs by Alex Ross, music critic of the New Yorker magazine and author of the critically acclaimed “The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century”.

As an improvising musician Eve has had the opportunity to perform with Fred Frith, Michael Snow, Malcolm Goldstein, Anne Bourne, Martin Arnold, and Casey Sokol. Other collaborations include dance projects, interdisciplinary performance, film work and sound installations. Her most recent collaboration “Surface Tension” with her husband media artist David Rokeby (structured improvisations on a disklavier piano and real-time images) can be viewed at: http://www.vimeo.com/6154175.
Honours include numerous commissions and awards from the Canada Council, Ontario and Toronto Arts Councils, FACTOR, a University of Victoria Distinguished Alumna Award, a K.M. Hunter Award, and a Chalmers Award. Recently she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC) and was one of fifty Canadian performers and conductors given and designation of “CMC Ambassador” by the Canadian Music Centre.

Eve Egoyan is a concert pianist who specializes in the performance of new works. Her interpretations and unique programmes welcome audiences into unknown territory, bridging the gap between them and contemporary composers. Composers have a uniformly high regard for her performances of their works, often considering them definitive.

more about Eve´s CDs "Simple Lines of Enquiry" , "thethingsinbetween" , "Hidden Corners (Recoins)" , "The Art of Touching the Keyboard" , "Wu" , "Weave" and "Asking".