“How did I choose short film projects when I was getting started? It’s the director, it’s the characters, it’s the type of music that I maybe didn’t work in before. So it gave me a new canvas or a challenge…You have no budget, but you still make something amazing and great.”

     Film composer Nami Melumad’s phone buzzed. It was her agent, Maria, calling with a new project.

     “There’s a spotting session tomorrow, and you’re going,” said Maria. “You’re scoring an episode of Star Trek: Short Treks.”

     A lifelong Trekkie, Nami gazed at her miniature starship Enterprise figurine while the Star Trek theme played in her head. This was a dream come true.

     The next day, Nami met the show’s producer, Alex Kurtzman. Together, they watched the episode (titled “Q&A”) in which young Ensign Spock, on his first day aboard the USS Enterprise, gets trapped in the turbolift (a rapid transport device) with the ship’s first officer. Every few seconds they stopped the playback to discuss how the music might best underscore the characters’ reactions.

     Alex explained what he wanted musically, and Nami boldly offered her own ideas. By the end of the meeting, she had a detailed road map for composing the score. That map would take her where no woman had gone before.

     But how did a girl from Israel become a film composer in Hollywood, anyway? It’s a tale worthy of its own soundtrack.

So begins our chapter on the life of Dutch-Israeli film composer, Nami Melumad, a rising star in Hollywood film music.

(Want the whole story? Read Nami's chapter in Music Mavens.)