Star Trek: Prodigy, next year’s animated series aimed at younger viewers, has added another member of its team to the growing roster that includes Kate Mulgrew’s return to the franchise as Kathryn Janeway.
First offering her musical talents in 2019’s Short Trek entry “Q & A,” Israeli-Dutch composer Nami Melumad has signed on to score the animated Star Trek: Prodigy series — making the Los Angeles-based musician the first woman to lead the musical direction of a Star Trek series.
Here’s the official news, announced today by Film Music Reporter:
Nami Melumad (An American Pickle, Absentia, Miss Arizona) has been tapped to score the upcoming Nickelodeon animated series Star Trek: Prodigy.
The show is created by Kevin Hageman & Dan Hageman (Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Ninjago: Masters of Spinjitzu) and follows a group of lawless teens who discover a derelict Starfleet ship and use it to search for adventure, meaning and salvation. Kate Mulgrew will star as her Star Trek: Voyager character Kathryn Janeway. No other casting announcements have been made yet.
Kevin & Dan Hageman are also executive producing the CBS’ Eye Animation Productions, Secret Hideout and Roddenberry Entertainment production with Alex Kurtzman, Heather Kadin, Rod Roddenberry & Trevor Roth (Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Picard) and Katie Krentz (Star Trek: Lower Decks). Ben Hibon (Codehunters) serves as director, co-executive producer and the creative lead of the project.
Melumad has previously scored an episode of Star Trek: Short Treks. Star Trek: Prodigy will premiere in 2021 on Nickelodeon. Melumad has also recently collaborated with Michael Giacchino on the score for the upcoming video game Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, which is set to be released on December 11, 2020.
Melumad’s most recent prominent work was the score for HBO Max’s film An American Pickle starting Seth Rogan, along with of course Ensign Spock’s first day on the Enterprise in last year’s “Q & A” Short Trek.
Very excited to beam aboard…☄️ And to boldly go where no woman has gone before! 🎶🎻
Q&A is now streaming on cbsallaccess🖖🏼, scored by yours truly. I had a lot of fun doing it, especially the end credits theme.… https://t.co/WMfFDJtHG3
— Nami Melumad (@namicomposer) October 8, 2019
Back in August, Star Trek head honcho Alex Kurtzman said of Melumad’s work on the Short Trek story (via TrekMovie):
Nami not only found an incredible way to touch on the feeling that you get from a great Star Trek score, which is this kind of wild exuberance and this joy and the joy of discovery and the joy of science. And obviously, the original Alexander Courage theme is such a big touchstone for anybody who loves Star Trek…
So the idea was, how do we touch the theme, render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and then give it its own sound. And Nami really found the joy. In fact, the piece that she wrote the plays over the end credits for “Q&A” is one of my favorite pieces ever for anything I’ve worked on in Star Trek.
Star Trek: Prodigy will debut on Nickelodeon sometime in 2021.