Star Trek's Q mixes music and stories for symphony show

Though sci-fi fans know him best for portraying an omnipotent alien on TV, it was actor John de Lancie's musical and theatre expertise that led to his participation in the Star Trek-themed symphony performance in Toronto this weekend.

De Lancie, who portrayed the recurring character Q on Star Trek: The Next Generation, helped conceive and co-hostsStar Trek: The Music, a narrated evening of music being presented by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra on Friday and Saturday.

"It's very different than listening to it on the three-inch speaker on your television set. In that respect, it is a real musical experience," de Lancie told CBC Radio on Friday.

"It's just fun. It's all the movie music. It's the television music. It's where they were in which film, where Leonard [Nimoy] was in all of this, where [William] Shatner was, particularly where [creator Gene] Roddenberry was."

With a father who was first oboist for the Philadelphia Orchestra and director of the Curtis Institute of Music, de Lancie's music education began early.

"I've always been really interested in entry-level audiences: how do you get somebody onto the bus?" de Lancie said.

"As a kid, I used to watch the [concert] narrations. As I began to do them, I came to the conclusion that they were even though many of these things came out of the theatre they were so skimpy."

So, alongside his career as an actor and director of theatre and opera, he has developed a reputation for conceiving and arranging genre-crossing productions that combine classical music with narration,dramatic performance and even dance.

For instance, inspired by Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, he created a show that featured "two actors, two singers, two dancers and 11 composers who have looked at this story called Romeo and Juliet and have tried to find musical connections."

Cincinnati Pops Orchestra conductor Erich Kunzel eventually approached de Lancie and Bob Picardo, who portrayed the Doctor on Star Trek: Voyager, to create a musical event based on the themes from the iconic franchise.

The Star Trek theme "has become iconic because the show gets played over and over again," de Lancie said.

"What we're hearing is science fiction, the hope for a better future. We're hearing music that tells us a little bit about where the future might go."