Pianist Eve Egoyan brings her mesmerizing musicality to Glenn Gould Studio on Friday, December 2, 2011, with RETURNINGS. The recital marks the launch of Eve's new CD - also entitled RETURNINGS - comprising world première recordings of four works by the late Ann Southam. The disc was musically designed by the composer who chose the works on the disc and the disc's order, creating the structure for the CD as a whole. Returnings II will receive its world première performance at the CD release concert, Returnings I and Qualities of Consonance their Toronto premières.

"This recording marks a personal closure", says Eve Egoyan. "Along with Simple Lines of Enquiry, it represents the complete works for solo piano that Ann wrote with me in mind. I cherish the memory of playing for her, listening together and discussing her music. The interpretative journey continues: each time I perform her music, Ann returns as radiant resonance, with us, forever." Ann Southam, one of Canada's finest composers, died in November 2010. She was 73.

"Returnings I floats in the lower and middle registers of the piano, where a dissonant line slowly unfolds, gently rocked between warm, consonant harmonies. In Retrospect stitches together two time worlds, common and celestial, while repeated notes hold together a gently unfolding pitch universe. Qualities of Consonance startles with its juxtapositions of dramatic dissonant musical gestures and the quiet weaving of a dissonant line within stillness. In Returnings II: A Meditation Ann's process is pared down, sublimely distilled. Her tone row unfolds note by note within the unique harmonic language of Returnings I." - Eve Egoyan

RETURNINGS features cover art by Ann Southam, liner notes by Tamara Bernstein and the poem Following a Stream by David Wagoner. As with six of her previous solo discs, Eve acts as soloist and Executive Producer.

Eve Egoyan is a concert pianist who specializes in the performance of new works. Her intense focus, command of the instrument, insightful 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. Her most recent disc, Simple Lines of Enquiry, a one-hour long piano solo by Ann Southam written for Eve, was selected as one of the New Yorker magazine's ten top of 2009 discs by Alex Ross, music critic and author of the critically acclaimed book The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century. Eve just returned from Nuit Blanche in Paris, France, where she performed Ann's Simple Lines of Enquiry. She looks forward to touring this work westwards to the PuSh Festival in Vancouver and other destinations in January 2012.

RETURNINGS was made possible through the support of the Ontario Arts Council. The CD launch concert was funded by the Toronto Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.

www.eveegoyan.com