Spock to land in Elgin

Make warp speed to be first on line at 12:01 a.m. Friday to score tickets to see Leonard Nimoy -- minus the pointy ears -- narrate Holst's "The Planets" alongside the Elgin Symphony Orchestra.

"Star Trek's" Mr. Spock will be in town Sept. 20 for the symphony's season opening gala. He will narrate a program of music that also includes many other space-inspired pieces as Beethoven's Overture to The Creatures of Prometheus, "Hymn to the Sun" by Rimsky-Korsakov and the opening fanfare of Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra," which was featured in the film, "2001: A Space Odyssey."

The show will be accompanied by images of space from NASA, projected on a big screen above the stage at the Hemmens Cultural Center. The Elgin Children's Chorus is also on the program.

Nimoy has worked with many symphonies across the country on similar productions.

The 6 p.m. concert is preceded by a champagne toast at 5:30 p.m. The Adler Planetarium will even provide telescopes for concert-goers to take a look at the night sky.

For tickets, log on to www.elginsymphony.org. And while you can start ordering on line just after midnight Friday morning, you can call in orders at 10 a.m. Friday by calling the ESO's box office at (847) 888-4000.