'Why We Dream' symphony experience coming to Benaroya Hall on November 13

A new kind of symphony experience is coming to Benaroya Hall on November 13th. So mark your calendars. It's called Why We Dream, and we'll explore the meaning behind dreams and how it can shape our everyday lives. Joining us now is composer Mateo Messina to talk more about this. Good morning. Thanks for jumping on. Good morning. How are you? I'm pretty good this morning. I wish I could have kept dreaming on, but my alarm was going off today. So why do we all have such similar dreams, and how are you exploring that through symphony? I mean, basically, all of us have these similar dreams, no matter what culture, anywhere in the world, dreams about falling or dreams about flying or losing our teeth or being chased. And even some of that being chased is actually our DNA. It's our evolution of we used to have to survive and actually run from tigers. And so our dreams are really a way for our brains to rehearse parts of our life. And that's why we have so many common dreams. And the way we're gonna explore through the symphony is by bringing in all of the strange things we feel in these dreams into the actual pieces of music. So I think it's gonna be really exciting and fun. I have many, many surprises where you'll like how dreams are so wildly different. We'll have one where you're just in a soothing moment and all of a sudden there's gonna be break dancers everywhere and you're just like, where did this come from? So we're just going to explore every facet of dreaming and why we dream. It's gonna be an interesting performance. And I know that we've learned that you're gonna be giving out some sleep masks to the audience. And so I can get behind that. Where did that idea come from though? Because now I'm thinking about it, putting on the mask, sitting back, listening to this beautiful music, probably fall asleep and start going off into la la land. Well, the idea behind it actually is when we cut off our vision, it doesn't necessarily improve our ears mechanics, but it changes how we perceive sound and how we perceive music. And the idea behind the piece is to focus in on a story that's all about a young woman who is facing all of her fears inside of her dream. And it's all of our fears, we all feel these same things. And the audience is gonna be surrounded by over 200 singers in all different parts of the concert hall. So I want to make it like a surround experience for people and there's a few surprises involved in that one as well. I think it's gonna be a lot of fun. Yeah, for sure. Now you founded the annual Seattle Children's Benefit. What motivated you to start that now 27 years ago? I had a good friend whose daughter had had treatment there and I learned all about the hospital. then called them up and said, hey, I play piano, would you like me to come and play? And they said, yeah, come down. I started playing piano with kids. We'd write songs about bees and dogs and farts, and we'd forget about cancer for a little while. And I learned about this fund called Uncompensated Care, and I was like, there's a need here. So I started doing my, I'd already done a symphony. I was like, let's do them now to raise money for the hospital. And since then, we've raised quite a bit. Okay, now your new holiday film actually started as one of these symphonies in Seattle. How did that come about? I mean, You compose the music, you write the films, and you're directed it. You're doing a lot. Yeah, it basically began, I was writing a concert. I used to walk through Pike Place Market. I'd see those guys singing out in front of Starbucks. And I would see other buskers, the piano player down there. And I was like, well, we perform in this symphony hall here. There's no difference between those musicians and the musicians in the hall, in my opinion, as far as the value that they have with connecting with people through music. So I decided to write a concert about putting these buskers and these street musicians and orchestral musicians together. While I was doing that, my mom had ended up passing away while I was writing it. So as I was writing the story, it ended up becoming a love letter to all of our moms. And then somebody approached me and said, you need to make this into a film. I was approached by a few different people. And then a few years later, we were in New York last year for five months shooting and it's coming out this November 20th. It's pretty special and I'm sure your mom has felt it or heard it wherever she is. So thank you so much for what you do, composer Matteo Messina. And if you'd like to listen to Why We Dream, we have a link on our website for you guys at fox13seattle.com. Thanks for chatting. Thank you. Great to see you.