Star Trek: Picard Composers Reflect on Scoring Season Three
Images: Wikimedia Commons/IMDB/Paramount+.
JUNE 26, 2023 – Star Trek: Picard composers Stephen Barton and Frederik Wiedmann have joined the ranks of the likes of Alexander Courage, Jerry Goldsmith, James Horner and others. Barton, though, compares that with an order to “add ten feet to the Eiffel Tower, and don’t screw it up.”
As they said during a panel at Deadline’s Sound & Screen event last month, that sort of pressure is what Barton and Wiedmann (who came on for episodes 7-10) felt when the decision was made not to reuse music for the season’s soundtrack, but rather to score the entire season for a proper send off for the TNG-era crew.
Barton said that meant "writing seven hours of music. I think about four hours in I was literally dead, absolutely. I was doing seven days weeks, 16-hour days, I hadn’t seen my family. It was absolutely brutal.” That’s when showrunner Terry Matalas suggested bringing in Wiedmann, who missed seeing the email for a week. No added pressure there.
Wiedmann had previously written music for television, including Big Nate and The Dragon Prince, and Barton’s television credits include Mysterious Planet and 12 Monkeys. For more, though, on their work on season three of Star Trek: Picard, including a video from their panel, head over to Deadline.
David is a contributing writer for Daily Star Trek News on the Roddenberry Podcast Network. He is a librarian, baseball fan, and book and movie buff. He has also written for American Libraries and Skeptical Inquirer. David also enjoys diverse music, but leans toward classical and jazz. He plays a mean radio.
