Fionnula Flanagan is an accomplished violinist in real life, and performed her own viola playing at the ship's concert. Fionnula Flanagan learned to play the viola while rehearsing this scene, spending a lot of time learning those six to eight bars of music, in order to make it convincing for the camera.
Several members of the production staff are referenced in the passenger manifests of the commercial transport database.
Picard only gets four minutes of screentime, aside from two captain's logs which are done in voice-over, and his brief appearance at the concert, where he doesn't get any dialogue at all.
Data's painting of Spot was made by scenic art artist Wendy Drapanas and can also be seen in Star Trek: Generations (1994).