"I'd never even considered writing a ballet before!": Floating Points details Mere Mortals project

The Mercury Prize-shortlisted musician and DJ – real name Sam Shepherd – wrote the score for a production commissioned by San Francisco Ballet’s artistic director Tamara Rojo, with choreography by Aszure Barton. The ballet reimagines the myth of Pandora, blending orchestral forces with Shepherd’s signature electronics. The album was recorded with the San Francisco Ballet Orchestra and features soloists including harpist Miriam Adefris and violinist Cordula Merks. The 14-track album from arrive on 28 August via Deutsche Grammophon.

A standalone extended single, “Falling to Earth”, is already available online with a further track, “Her Gift” shared this week. Shepherd describes that piece as “a duet written for harp and Therevox ET 4.3 – a dance between Epimetheus and Pandora: he is falling in love with her.”

The composer, a former chorister at Manchester Cathedral who studied at Chetham’s School of Music, said he had never considered writing for ballet until Rojo approached him. “I replied, ‘You know, I think I’d want to do a whole show.’ And that’s how it happened,” he said. Early ideas included a ballet based on the Manhattan Project, before his partner – dancer Hannah Ekholm – noted parallels with Pandora’s story Shepherd has also cited classicist Natalie Haynes as an influence, particularly on the myth’s treatment of gender. “The translations [of Pandora’s story] robbed her of her agency,” he said. “Pandora’s not about bringing hell to Earth. She really represents curiosity and change.”

The score moves between elegiac strings, dissonant brass and pulsing synthesisers and SFBO music director Martin West describes the orchestral music as emerging “from an electronic haze – not in contrast to it, but as if growing organically out of the same material.”

Shepherd picks “Nowhere to land” as a personal highlight, a piece referencing climate crisis in the ballet’s new ending. “When I heard the music I’d written on the page transformed by Cordula’s exquisite violin-playing it made me excited to write more in the future,” he said.

Floating Points will appear at the European premiere of Mere Mortals at the 2026 Edinburgh International Festival on 28 August, with further performances on 29 and 30 August with the Royal Scottish National Orchestra. The work then transfers to Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London from 9 to 12 September with the Royal Ballet Sinfonia.

Mere Mortals artwork

Mere Mortals tracklist

"Movement 1 - Fire"
"Movement 2 - Hope"
"Movement 3 - Rage Of The Gods"
"Movement 4 - Zeus' Command"
"Movement 5 - Pandora's Creation"
"Movement 6 - Pandora's Theme"
"Gift From The Gods"
"Falling To Earth"
"Prometheus' Warning"
"Her Gift"
"Opening Of The Jar"
"A Plea"
"Hope Taking Flight"
"Nowhere To Land"