It’s Big Work to make a World Complete: Review of Eve Egoyan playing Anne Southam’s Simple Lines of Inquiry

The lush, rich lines of a Fazioli concert grand piano dominated the centre of the Heritage Hall on Main street. Seats were placed all around the glossy, topless instrument. Topless for good reason, because when Eve Egoyan began playing Simple Lines of Inquiry, the room filled with the rising rolling resonances of its body, the slow movement and expansive time of Anne Southam’s composition bringing us into a contemplative space, together.

Within that space, I felt a range of emotive and meditative qualities ranging from pleasurable and profoundly peaceful to uncomfortably cheesy, subtly aggressive or triumphantly indulgent. I was able to trust the piece and relax into the experience because, Ms. Egoyan is a wonderful and responsive listener. Through this quality of care, the 60 minute performance became a reciprocal experience. I felt part of the narrative of the moment, not just included but integral.

Of course such spaciousness and inclusion is challenging. Every shuffle, cough, sneeze potentially jarring – interrupting the inquiry of the moment. However, recognizing my own contributions to the ambient “noise-pollution” afforded a wonderful opportunity to relax even more, to surrender and allow the minimalist procedures being applied to a 12-interval row to inspire and facilitate my own lines of inquiry.

If the piece felt a bit long at times, perhaps it was because each of the 12 movements began in much the same way and was deceptively simple in its progression. However, each movement added a phrase, a texture, a chord, a harmonic to the overarching aural narrative, deepening the experience, offering insight into the (sometimes frustrating) cyclical nature of our human experience, as well as the sublime variance possible within.