Michael Giacchino scores Star Trek Beyond

Posted on July 22, 2016 by Dan Goldwasser



In May and June of this year, Oscar-winning composer Michael Giacchino returned to the final frontier to score the third entry in the rebooted Star Trek series, Star Trek Beyond. Directed by Fast and Furious director Justin Lin, recording for the score took place at the Newman Scoring Stage at 20th Century Fox, and we’re thrilled to share our exclusive photos from the sessions with our readers!


The orchestra records a cue from Star Trek Beyond

For the orchestral portion of the score, longtime conductor/orchestrator Tim Simonec led a 98-piece ensemble of the Hollywood Studio Symphony. While he uses the main themes he established for the rebooted film back in 2009, Giacchino created new themes for the film, befitting the new alien races and villains encountered.


The orchestra performs with conductor/orchestrator Tim Simonec

The woodwinds

The violins

The French horn section

Percussionists Dan Greco, Walter Rodriguez, Don Williams, and Alex Acuña

The low brass

Percussionists Michael Englander and Emil Richards

Taking the music to new heights was a 70-person choir, which was used to give a dramatic sense of weight and epicness to the score.


The choir

Conductor/orchestrator Tim Simonec and a 70-person choir perform the opening cue from composer Michael Giacchino’s score to Star Trek Beyond

Accompanist Marshall Bowen and the choir

Conductor/orchestrator Tim Simonec at the podium

In the booth, composer Michael Giacchino was joined by director Justin Lin, who gave feedback on the music. Scoring mixer Joel Iwataki, music editor Steve Davis, orchestrator Jeff Kryka and ProTools recordist Vinni Cirilli were also on hand to give comments. (Running between the dub stage at Universal and the scoring stage at Fox were assistant music editors Warren Brown and Erig Wegener, who might appear in some photos.)


Director Justin Lin discusses a cue with composer Michael Giacchino

Composer Michael Giacchino and scoring mixer Joel Iwataki

Orchestrator Jeff Kryka, music editor Steve Davis, and ProTools recordist Vinni Cirilli

In an historic "first", the score for Star Trek Beyond was performed live-to-picture by the San Diego Symphony for the World Premiere at Comic-Con this week. As such, during the recording sessions, live score conductor Richard Kaufman and live score consultant Mae Crosby were taking diligent notes, since everything would have to be recreated for the performance.


Live score conductor Richard Kaufman

Director

The Enterprise watches over the session

Star Trek Beyond opens nationwide in theaters today. A soundtrack album is available from Varese Sarabande records digitally today, and physically next week.

You've only seen 23 images - click here for 54 more scoring session images for this project!