Musical minds: A conversation with pianist-composer Eve Egoyan

By Dr. Araxie Altounian

Musical minds is a conversation series with established, talented Armenian musicians with a Canadian connection who contribute to Armenian musical culture in innovative ways and build bridges between the Armenian diasporic community and its host societies. AGBU Toronto has graciously provided its Zoom platform for live broadcast on Facebook, and its recording on Facebook and Instagram, while Torontohye has been kind enough to publish them.

The following is based on my conversation with my seventh guest, internationally celebrated Canadian-Armenian pianist and composer Eve Egoyan. Eve has been distinguished as one of the 25 top Canadian pianists of all time by the CBC and was inducted into the CBC Hall of Fame in 2023. Considered one of Canada’s primary ambassadors for Canadian music abroad, Eve has been designated “CMC Ambassador” by the Canadian Music Centre. She has recorded thirteen solo CDs, which have received the accolades” Best Classical” by The Globe and Mail in 1999, one of “Ten Top” classical discs by the New Yorker magazine in 2009, and “Top Classical Disc of the Year” by The Globe and Mail in 2011. Eve is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (FRSC) and an elected Associate of the Royal Academy of Music, London, England (ARAM).

Egoyan will perform in “Longing and Belonging,” an evocative all-Armenian program, at the Meridian Arts Centre, George Weston Recital Hall, on May 10, 2024. This concert features four Canadian premieres alongside works by Komitas Vardapet, delving into the depths of Armenian musical heritage through the lens of a Canadian-Armenian pianist’s personal journey. Tickets range from $30 to $50, plus applicable fees, and can be purchased through the TO Live website and Ticketmaster.

(Photo: eveegoyan.com)

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Araxie Altounian: Eve, you are known as one of the most celebrated contemporary music specialists in Canada. Can you give us a glimpse into your musical journey from childhood to your arrival in Toronto?

Eve Egoyan: I was born in Canada; my parents were born in Egypt and emigrated in 1962. They were outstanding visual artists, and art was very much at the forefront of our household. Culture was very important to my parents. There was no piano in the house, but our neighbour had one. Her sister had played for silent movies, and I insisted she teach me everything about the piano. So, I would go there after school, and she taught me what she knew. At a certain point, I bugged my parents about lessons. They were not really keen; they put me in group lessons with Mrs. Brayshaw, who I ended up adoring as a piano teacher. She took me into scholarship piano lessons because I was advancing quickly and an eager pianist. I continued to go to the neighbours to practice until I could afford a second-hand piano.

I did my basic training at the Victoria Conservatory, then my undergraduate study at the University of Victoria, and this was all standard repertoire. In my second year at university, I was trying to figure out how to leave Victoria as it was such a small town. I applied for scholarships and received two: a DAAD for Berlin and a Commonwealth Scholarship to study at the Royal Academy of Music in London. So, my first time away from Victoria was in Berlin. I should also say that I studied in the summertime at the Banff Centre with a very well-known pedagogue and amazing musician, György Sebők, a Hungarian pianist, who recommended a Hungarian teacher, Georg Sava in Berlin. After four years of study in Europe, my mother said I should return to Canada for an academic degree because musical institutions are not academic in Europe: It’s totally artist training, extremely rich and vibrant, but there’s no degree. So, I came to the University of Toronto because my brother was here and because I was also accepted to be a resident at Massey College, a scholarship residence and a graduate residence of a very high caliber. In Toronto, there were a bunch of composers whom I had met in Victoria, and I got to play their music. That’s when I became keen about playing the music of my time. When working with a living composer, you can work together like Mozart did when the composer wrote specifically for the musicians of his time. So, pieces have been written for me. My practice is very traditional – it’s how musicians used to be. It’s only in our time that there’s been a separation between the composer and musician, as well as this repeating of music from the past rather than playing music of our time. What I’m doing is what people used to do: playing the music of their own time.

Altounian: Matthew Parsons from the CBC wrote in 2015: “Classical music ought to have a sense of adventure, and Eve Egoyan certainly does. One of this country’s most respected contemporary music interpreters, Egoyan is willing to take on anything, from improvisation to electronics to whatever the next crazy thing may be. Not only that, but she can also make lovely music on the piano. That’s crucial.” This “sense of adventure” opened a few doors, such as commissions from various composers and the ability to compose your own works.

Egoyan: I don’t play just anyone’s work because when playing a piece for the first time that nobody has heard, your responsibility as a musician is beyond what standard [repertoire] is because people have to be comfortable with it. You have to be fully committed for anything positive to be received by the listener. I select works that interest me and are strong compositional voices. I also program things carefully so that they can be heard in the best way I can imagine. I connect with people whose aesthetic appeals to me because I know I can do the best for them. It is uncomfortable to be in a situation where you’re playing a piece of music you’re not convinced of. I forged relationships with composers whose work I click with. Also, I’m living in a time when women have as many opportunities as men – hopefully! So, I have an awareness of trying to keep things in balance because we can now. This should be supported, because if women don’t see women being played, the next generation of young women won’t want to continue. It’s important that they’re on a stage, they’re visible, they’re being published, so that in the future it feels like it’s possible for a woman to be a creator.

Altounian: You’ve had nine works commissioned by women composers. Can you tell us more about your collaborations with some of them?

Egoyan: There are three key ones. Maria de Alvear in Spain and two Canadians, Ann Southam, who’s no longer with us, and Linda Catlin Smith, both Toronto-based composers. The first time I met Maria, I was playing a two-hour-long piece of hers, and she came from Germany, where she was living. It was quite overwhelming. She thinks in large terms. Playing that music was transformative because I had never spent two hours within one compositional language with my audience. That meant that the audience had time to shift into her sound world. She had written me three piano concertos and wrote the work Asking when I was wondering whether I should have a child: an hour-long piece of deep self-inquiry, a very internal and emotional piece.

Ann Southam wrote a response to Asking, Simple Lines of Inquiry, originally called A Little Quiet Music for Viva, and wrote it after hearing Asking, which is notated proportionately. Maria writes only the pitches on the page, so I make decisions on everything else. [Ann] wanted to write a piece that incorporated a little bit of that freedom. So Simple Lines of Inquiry was written in response to Asking but also to Viva’s birth. These two amazing women don’t have children, and they’re close to me, so they invested in imagining this for me. Ann wrote a lot of works for me for about ten years before she died of cancer. I released three CDs of her works. Linda Catlin Smith was my first commission from the Canada Council for the Arts. The first piece written for me was a Nocturne by Linda, Nocturne for Eve. I recorded a disc of her piano works. Now her career has exploded, she’s performed by the BBC orchestra and people are putting out discs of her work all the time. She’s a close friend and an impeccable page-turner!

Altounian: In your biographical notes, we read: “Eve has created a series of works which delve into the space between what a piano can do and what she wishes a piano could do, combining acoustic piano with new technologies.” Can you tell us more about your interest in technology and the augmented piano?

Egoyan: I wouldn’t be working with technology if I were not married to David Rokeby, a well-known media artist. We had our first collaboration when [composer] Peter Hatch from a festival called Open Ears suggested we do something together. We created Surface Tension for the piano and responsive visuals. It’s a unique piece where visuals are responsive to certain parameters that the piano can do. I create both sound and image, and they’re interwoven through touch. That was my first piece with technology. Next, I was invited to have a residency at Avatar in Quebec City, where they matched me with a programmer, Patrice Coulombe. I wanted to extend what a piano can do. I love the piano. I want to play the piano and not the electric keyboard, but at the same time, I want to make it seem like it can do things that it normally can’t do, like hold a note forever, do a trill, a tremolo, shift pitch, go higher or lower than it can, putting it on a kind of magical journey. I also wanted to write for the instrument, but I found I was a bit locked because I had been playing music by other people for so long, and that music inhabited me in a way that bothered me when I was trying to write. So, by recreating the instrument, I could break through that. I also created a notation for myself using a four-stave rather than a two-stave system.

Altounian: In the spring of 2022, you visited Armenia for the first time. That’s when you first met composers Tigran Mansurian and Vaché Sharafyan, whose works you will be performing soon. But first, please tell us what it was like to be in Armenia and discover Armenian culture.

Egoyan: I had the honour of being supported by the Canada Council for the Arts for both of my visits to Armenia. I also had the pleasure of having my friend Gascia Ouzounian there for my visits. On my first visit, I was astounded at what a musical culture it is. Music is everywhere: classical, jazz, improvised, exploratory, experimental, folk. Everyone seems to sing or to be playing an instrument. It is embedded in the culture. Artists are treated with a lot of respect. There’s a sense of history and lineage. The land is what draws me back right now: the sense of space and age. It’s not only the architectural buildings but also the landscape itself, the things that grow there, the type of air, the type of food there – it’s very distilled and feels very real. It’s very far away and very old.

[With Gascia Ouzounian], we did the walk to [the Armenian Genocide memorial] Tsitsernakaberd from downtown and joined the crowds. It’s hard to put things into words. We were just fortunate to be part of it. The night before was exceptional too because they sang outside at the Opera House, which was remarkable.

Altounian: Your second visit was in the spring of 2023, but this time, you had a busy professional schedule with concerts, masterclasses, and workshops held in collaboration with violinist and sonic theorist Gascia Ouzounian. Can you tell us more about those events?

Egoyan: They chose my concert program, which consisted of works that they had not heard of before. Michael Finnissy is a British composer who represents what is called a high complexity school. Linda Catlin Smith’s is an extraordinary piece that was written for me, and they chose it. They wanted these two pieces using the technology that I had created. Interestingly, they curated this program. I also gave masterclasses in standard repertoire and did a workshop with Gascia Ouzounian about graphic notation – a type of notation that can be highly varied, the question of what the stimulus is for imagining sound. There’s a very open culture there. [The young students] want to hear everything. They’re incredibly gifted, bright, and driven.

Altounian: You have played a duo recital with Gascia Ouzounian on violin with a program consisting of the works of Khachaturian, Babajanian and Komitas at the University of Oxford, UK.

Egoyan: Armenian music was a complicated issue for me. My father responded very emotionally to it. His parents were orphans of the genocide, and it was pretty unbearable how easily triggered he was to this music. Since I couldn’t deal with his emotional response to Armenian music, I avoided it. There was Armenian music in the house, folk music, and church music. But I had this emotional suspicion about how deep it could go. So, when Gascia Ouzounian, a close friend I trust wholeheartedly, suggested that I journey into Armenian music, I went on with it. With her holding my hand, metaphorically, it was wonderful. So yes, this was my beginning. Gascia has been alongside me on this journey as a friend, an artist, and a fellow Armenian. She understands my reticence but also how important this is for me at the same time, also how important it is for me to do this journey my way since I chose composers that I’m interested in, composers who I could “speak” with, and a program that I feel is very solid.

Altounian: How did you feel about playing this music?

Egoyan: It was tricky because it felt way too familiar, and I find that hard because I don’t want to mimic. I got used to playing music I never heard before, which I can come to on my own terms. When you have a history of hearing something, it’s harder to hear it for the first time and find a true place for yourself within it. The pleasure of playing music that’s been written for me, where I introduce things for the first time, is that there’s no possibility of being emotionally responsive to something because that’s how people respond to it – it’s a cleaner journey. I think that is why I didn’t respond positively to my father’s emotions; I couldn’t deal with them. It wasn’t clearly spoken about why he was so emotional (well, we knew a little bit). Maybe he didn’t even know because his mother and father were orphans, and they didn’t have a lot of language about where they came from. So, music became this unspoken emotional place of course, because music is a language but not spoken. It goes beyond words, which is a very difficult place. My father’s emotionality was not held with care – it was extreme and hard not to reject. Maybe that’s why I have become more careful about hyper-expression gestures. I had it so much when I was a child and did not understand it because it was not expressible.

Altounian: On May 9, 2024, you will give your first solo recital dedicated to contemporary Armenian composers and Komitas. Could you explain the genesis of this program? What were you searching for when choosing these composers and their works?

Egoyan: My choice is subjective. [Tigran Mansurian’s] Lullaby for a Prince is the introductory piece of the program. It’s gentle and not very long; an exquisite small composition for piano, extremely intimate, that draws us into a space of listening right off the bat. The next piece [Aghavni (Doves)] is by Mary Kouyoumdjian and is a direct response to the genocide. It’s in three movements: before, during, and after, and is a very explicit piece of piano writing. Its compositional language is very clear – it’s familiar, very earthy, and rich. After Mary’s piece, there’s Gelalian’s Tre Cicli, which is inflected by Arabic rhythms and has a propulsive piano writing. It’s very rhythmic and alive. Next are four movements from Vaché Sharafian’s Goat Rite. His musical language opens up into a new place. It’s quite free and surreal. It’s evocative music, very pianistic, ritualistic. It incorporates Armenian elements that are elevated and transformed. He’s extremely lyrical and free and very much himself as a composer and pianist; you can hear this in his music. It’s affecting and evocative. It comes from a pantomime and has that visual presence or sense of time, with a lot of pauses – it’s quite lovely!

After intermission, I will play [Komitas’] Seven Dances, which are extraordinary pieces for the piano, unlike any other type of notation for the instrument, which incorporates the Armenian elements of folkloric melodies but also evocations of percussion instruments and drone. Those divisions are like a type of counterpoint, like Bach. It’s very beautiful, transparent, delicate, and powerful at the same time. To do that without the heaviness of European harmony on a European instrument, it’s pretty strange writing because it’s so exceptional for the piano that it seems unexceptional because it’s natural. The next piece that takes the idea of monody or a single line to a more avant-garde place is Nariné’s Four Monodies. Monody is a single line. She has these lines then these extreme responses like a lot of deep cluster chords, kind of volatile in its expressiveness. It’s a stealth piece because it seems still but it’s actually highly emotive. It’s the most extremely emotional piece on the program because it’s the most dissonant (but not), and the most dramatic.

This is followed by my piece, Ghosts Beneath My Fingertips. The second half explores monody—single lines—more than the first half. Komitas implies Armenian instruments. In my piece, you actually hear Armenian instruments. Right off the bat, I’m playing the duduk because I’m triggering it while I’m playing. We can also hear my daughter Viva’s voice.

Altounian: Gelalian’s piece is from 1969. That was the time when chromaticism and atonality were the rage in Europe. Does he succeed in achieving something close to that while using the chromaticism embedded in oriental scales instead?

Egoyan: Totally! It’s not like high European contemporary music, but much more in line with the Arabic sound world. It’s a great piece of music, even the form – how the three movements are interwoven and how they’re composed. It’s an interesting piece of music because it doesn’t fall strictly within the European tradition. You feel his unbelievable musicality and pianism and his ability to blend. He’s trying to find a place for himself within that European world, which is, I think, what Komitas was also trying to figure out, as well as Nariné. Nariné is very European. She lives in Germany and has these extremes in how she uses the piano. That’s the interesting thing about this diasporic music: We are very much affected by where we live. Mary’s piece sounds kind of American, Nariné’s kind of German, and Gelalian’s sounds Lebanese. I don’t know if my piece sounds Canadian.

Altounian: That’s the Armenian reality. When composing, Komitas was trying to create an idiom that was specifically Armenian. Still, he couldn’t have imagined that several years later, Armenians would be massacred, survivors would be dispersed around the world, and their artists would be influenced by the cultures in which they lived. So the question arises: what happened to that Armenian idiom? How do you perceive this issue when putting your pieces next to each other?

Egoyan: It’s extraordinary. Everyone [I am playing] is Armenian, and I feel strangely very close to these languages. There is a ‘family feeling’ around this music, and yet everyone is trying to get to this place of ‘Armenian,’ even Komitas when trying to put that Armenianness into a European instrument, which he does brilliantly. The sense of ‘longing and belonging’, or everyone’s idea of what it means to be Armenian, trying to find a place of ‘belonging’ as an artist, is different even though the aims complement themselves in this program. It’s a very intriguing program. I’m quite curious to know how both Armenians and non-Armenians will hear it. Of course, I’ve played a program of Japanese music or Spanish music, but I’ve never, as an Armenian, played a program of Armenian music, and that does feel very different.

Altounian: Can you hear the diversity in the Armenian identity when you’re performing these pieces?

Egoyan: There’s not just one Armenian sound. How could there be? There’s this desire for purity, which would be unnatural and probably unhealthy. If we don’t adapt to where we are, that would not be a good thing.

Altounian: You have prepared a documentary to introduce each composer and their work to the audience.

Egoyan: The pleasure of working with living composers is that they can speak for themselves. The document, conceived and created by documentary filmmaker Su Rynard, brings their voices into your ears before you hear their music. There’s something very precious about that. Unfortunately, we had to edit it to a digestible length. Hearing a composer talk about what they do is exceptionally moving and informative. Nobody’s a composer because they have to be. They’re totally invested in their musical practices. This document gives an essence from each of them, and I find it astonishing.

It is my pleasure to do this program. I didn’t know it was going to come together like this. The program, as a series of pieces, will be a very interesting journey in a way that I didn’t expect it to be – much bigger and richer. They’re all strong [pieces]. There is a lot of diversity but also a similarity that binds them. ֎

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Egoyan's “Longing and Belonging,” an all-Armenian program, will take place at the Meridian Arts Centre, George Weston Recital Hall, on May 10, 2024. Tickets range from $30 to $50, plus applicable fees, and can be purchased through the TO Live website and Ticketmaster.