CHaron’s Pantheon

electroacoustic music by jennifer logan

piano improvisation by bryan pezzone

Charon’s Pantheon is collection of 13 Goddesses, envisioned and sculpted by artist and mystic Myron Dyal, for which he commissioned the electroacoustic works presented here. For this concert, acclaimed crossover pianist Bryan Pezzone will improvise upon them, musically linking them with solo improvisations, adding another extraordinary voice to this addition to modern mythology.

The cycle includes: The Goddesses As Above, So Below, Music & Transfiguration, Conversation & Contemplation, Moon, Death, The White Shroud, Leaves & Plants, Birth & Creative Energy, Trees, the Wolf, Fire, the Black Shroud, and the Red Shroud.

From the introduction to Charon’s Pantheon:

Charon is Myron Dyal’s spiritual guide, and this collection of the goddesses in Charon’s Pantheon IS a true modern mythology, but one without a prescribed dogma. The attributes of the totems in this collection are part of a primal praxis that should be evident to anyone who has studied Joseph Campbell’s Power of Myth. These celestials have been simplified to their most basic and powerful. [...] Dyal has had spiritual visions connected to Temporal Lobe Epilepsy that are the catalysts for the vast oeuvre of his work that spans nearly three decades and includes more than 6,000 drawings, paintings, and sculptures. His figurative and organic forms are derived from visions he experiences during epileptic seizures and from self-induced trances he encounters on the spiritual journey of his lifelong struggle with epilepsy and its stigma. Charon has been with Myron ever since his “second birth,” as he terms it; a three-month coma at the age of four from which emerged a lifetime of visionary experiences. Charon has been his spiritual mother, father, friend, and guide. He is the unifying factor in Myron’s life and has been the primal factor in his healing process. Charon’s Pantheon represents a culmination of his life work up through 2011.

Jennifer Logan’s goal for Charon’s Pantheon was to give voices to the goddesses. Myron’s memoirs document many of the experiences that have contributed to his conception of the goddesses and nurtured his work throughout the past several decades. From that text, Logan created a libretto of thirteen poems, absorbing a few of his experiences as deeply as possible, internalizing what these goddesses represent, with the hope of giving them the justice they deserve. These 4-6 minute works have a transcendental quality, as though time opens up, no longer marching forward but instead offering a single heartbeat of existence, vast and experiential.

Bryan Pezzone contributes another extraordinary dimension with his keen sensitivity to both Dyal’s vision and Logan’s musical language. He brings his own spiritual awareness and connectivity to the human condition, which inform his improvisational languages to something seemingly channeled from another universe; he is in touch and in tune with the central core, exquisitely introspective yet expansive and powerful.

For these concerts, lights will be dimmed, while music surrounds from without and within the audience. Total encapsulation of this dramatic and celestial experience. However, due to space limitations, these life-size sculptures will remain in Dyal’s studio. Video projections will accompany the works during the performance, the book/CD set will be available for purchase, and Dyal can be contacted for private showings of the sculptures, with Logan’s music. Please contact LASO for more information.