Chambersonic imagines the book as an acoustic chamber, its pages populated with an ensemble of players who breathe together, enacting translations between instruments and materials. The space comes alive with rehearsals, scores, and a reverberation of adjoining environments – aural, social, physical, visual, political. A conductor fades in and out as agencies, noises, and situations test their volumes and energies – all until voices morph into rebellious notation, signalling the near-silenced, the dissonant, and the ignored.
A collection of poems, essays, performance scores, and audio recordings, Chambersonic thematically and formally reflects on the practice of soundmaking, combining poetic and experimental music techniques in ways that will appeal to readers and listeners alike.
Author Biography:
Oana Avasilichioaei interweaves poetry, sound, performance, photography, and translation to expand and trouble ideas of language, histories, polyphonic structures, and borders of listening. She has published six collections of poetry hybrids, including Eight Track (Talonbooks, 2019, finalist for the Governor General’s Literary Award and A. M. Klein Prize for Poetry) and Limbinal (Talonbooks, 2015), created many performance/sound works that mix electronics, ambient textures, noise, and vocal play, and written a libretto for a one-act opera Cells of Wind (FAWN, 2022). She has also translated many books of poetry and prose from French and Romanian, including Martine Desjardins’s Medusa (Talonbooks, 2022), Catherine Lalonde’s The Faerie Devouring (Book*hug 2018, QWF’s Cole Foundation Prize for Translation), and Bertrand Laverdure’s Readopolis (Book*hug, 2017, Governor General’s Literary Award for Translation). Based in Montréal with forays into New York, Avasilichioaei frequently performs her work in Canada, the United States, and Europe. See www.oanalab.com.
Eight Track
Finalist 2020 The A. M. Klein Prize for Poetry
Finalist 2020 Governor General’s Literary Award for Poetry
Wigrum
Runner-up 2014 Alcuin Award for Book Design in Canada
Winner 2012 Grafika Grand Prize Winner (Typography)
