Seeking Persephone arrived in March 2026 as one of the year’s most talked-about Regency romance productions — a crowdfunded, independently made mini series that climbed to the No. 1 spot on Amazon’s purchase chart. Starring Ryann Bailey and Jake Stormoen, and directed by John Lyde from a screenplay by Sarah M. Eden adapting her own novel, the four-episode story follows an impoverished young woman who enters a cold, arranged marriage with the scarred and reclusive Duke of Kielder — and slowly chips away at the walls around his heart. From the moment the first episode aired, viewers singled out the music as a defining part of its emotional pull. This article covers everything you need to know about the Seeking Persephone soundtrack: the composer, the full tracklist with run times, score highlights, and where to stream it.
Seeking Persephone Soundtrack — At a Glance
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Series Title | Seeking Persephone |
| Director | John Lyde |
| Production Company | Mainstay Productions |
| Platforms | Prime Video, Fandango at Home, Angel |
| Series Premiere | March 1, 2026 |
| Format | TV Mini Series (4 episodes) |
| Composer | James Schafer |
| Label | James Schafer Music |
| Score Album Release | February 6, 2026 |
| Total Tracks | 25 |
| Total Runtime | 1 hour 5 minutes |
| Album Format | Digital |
Seeking Persephone Soundtrack Overview
The Seeking Persephone original score was composed and produced by James Schafer and released digitally on February 6, 2026, nearly four weeks before the series premiered. It was released under James Schafer Music, the composer’s own imprint, in digital format across all major streaming and purchase platforms.
The album carries the title Seeking Persephone (Original Score) on Apple Music and Seeking Persephone (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) on Spotify and Amazon Music. This minor labeling difference reflects the production’s unusual journey: the project was originally conceived and crowdfunded as a feature film before being restructured into a four-episode mini series for its streaming release. The score album title was finalized under the “motion picture soundtrack” designation, consistent with its origins.
The production itself was crowdfunded via Kickstarter in October 2023, raising just over $200,000. Principal photography took place in two phases — six days in Utah in February 2024 and a 12-day shoot in England in February 2025, with locations including a castle discovered almost by accident along the side of a road in northern England.
The resulting score is a full-length orchestral work, clocking in at just over 65 minutes across 25 tracks. Director John Lyde has spoken publicly about giving Schafer an unusually open creative brief on this project, reportedly telling the composer: “James, you know what I like, I know what you like, do whatever you want” — a degree of creative trust that reflects their long working relationship. The score was recorded with a live orchestra in Bulgaria. When Lyde first heard the completed music, he described getting emotional, noting that it confirmed for him that years of work had paid off.
In tone, the score leans into classical Regency-era orchestral writing — sweeping strings, period-appropriate restraint, and moments of emotional swell that sit comfortably alongside the genre’s most recognized touchstones. Viewers and reviewers have noted that the music reinforces the show’s deliberate, unhurried pacing, which several have compared to the 1995 BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.
Who Composed the Seeking Persephone Soundtrack?
The Seeking Persephone soundtrack was composed by James Schafer, an American composer for film and television with a career built largely within the independent film world, particularly in Utah-based productions.
Schafer is best known for scoring The Outpost, the CW adventure-fantasy series that ran from 2018 to 2021 across 49 episodes, for which he composed the full original series soundtrack — a project that resulted in a two-season album release (The Outpost: Season 2 & Season 3 Original Series Soundtrack, released in 2021). That series soundtrack demonstrated his ability to sustain a large body of original music across an extended run, a skill that translates directly to the demands of Seeking Persephone.
Beyond The Outpost, Schafer’s confirmed credits include the war drama Saints and Soldiers: The Void (2014), the third installment in the Saints and Soldiers franchise; the fantasy series Mythica: The Godslayer (2016); Not Cinderella’s Type (2018); Love, Lost & Found (2021); Finding Grace (2020); Shattered Memories (2020); Romance in the Air (2020); The Christmas Dragon (2014); The Letter Writer (2013); Silent Night (2013); and One Shot (2013), among many others spanning over a decade of independent production work.
Many of Schafer’s credits are with Mainstay Productions, the Utah-based company that produced Seeking Persephone, making this score part of a long and established creative collaboration between the composer and director John Lyde. Schafer is also notably credited with the music for The Hunger Games: The Second Quarter Quell fan project, released under the album title Finnick and Annie (2012), which helped raise his profile among genre soundtrack listeners.
His more recent work includes Beauty and the Billionaire (TV series, 2025), Christmas Roses (2025), and Sleeping Beauty Next Door (2026), confirming that Schafer remains an active and prolific composer in the independent production space.
The Seeking Persephone score is widely regarded as among the most ambitious projects of his career in terms of runtime and thematic scope — 25 tracks and over an hour of original orchestral music, recorded with a live Bulgarian orchestra, for a story set in Regency England in 1805.
Seeking Persephone Official Tracklist
The full Seeking Persephone soundtrack contains 25 tracks with a total runtime of approximately 1 hour 5 minutes. All track titles and durations below are confirmed from the official album as listed on Spotify and Apple Music.
| # | Track Title | Duration |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Shropshire, 1805 | 2:22 |
| 2 | Letter for Marriage | 3:13 |
| 3 | The Wedding | 0:53 |
| 4 | Haste to Leave | 2:08 |
| 5 | Falstone Castle | 5:06 |
| 6 | The Lancasters Depart | 6:01 |
| 7 | Letter from Artemis | 1:05 |
| 8 | Persephone Returns to the Castle | 1:18 |
| 9 | She Might Surprise You | 1:03 |
| 10 | Dukes Don’t Need People | 1:36 |
| 11 | I Hear Wolves | 1:20 |
| 12 | Persephone’s Despair | 2:59 |
| 13 | You Do That Very Well | 1:01 |
| 14 | Urgent Message | 2:24 |
| 15 | Waiting for Adam to Return | 1:57 |
| 16 | Taking Adam’s Hand | 2:12 |
| 17 | He Doesn’t Trust People | 3:11 |
| 18 | After Persephone’s Fall | 2:07 |
| 19 | Wolf Attack | 6:18 |
| 20 | Lonely in an Empty Castle | 2:00 |
| 21 | First Ride Outside Castle Gates | 2:32 |
| 22 | Adam Chases Smith / Arrival of Linus | 3:29 |
| 23 | Persephone and Adam’s Dance | 3:04 |
| 24 | You Miss Her | 1:50 |
| 25 | Hades Goes After Persephone | 4:30 |
Score Highlights
The tracklist of Seeking Persephone functions almost like a chapter-by-chapter map of the series’ emotional arc, with track titles that track the narrative closely enough to offer clear hints about placement and purpose. The following highlights are based on track titles, runtime analysis, and the series’ known story structure. Specific scene placements are analytically derived, as no episode-level cue sheet or needle drop database entry has been published for this title.
“Shropshire, 1805” (2:22) opens the album with a strong period statement. The title grounds the listener immediately in time and place — rural England, early nineteenth century — and the track’s runtime suggests it functions as an establishing theme, likely scoring the opening minutes of the first episode before the marriage proposal that sets the story in motion.
“Falstone Castle” (5:06) and “The Lancasters Depart” (6:01) are the two longest tracks in the first half of the album. At over five and six minutes respectively, these are the score’s two most expansive atmospheric pieces. “Falstone Castle” likely introduces Persephone’s arrival at the Duke’s forbidding northern estate, letting the music carry the visual weight of the setting. “The Lancasters Depart” — the longest individual cue on the album — is likely the emotional pillar of a scene involving Persephone’s family leaving and the full reality of her new life setting in. Both tracks suggest that Schafer gave these early dramatic turning points significant orchestral space.
“Persephone’s Despair” (2:59) is one of the more emotionally direct track titles, landing at number twelve in the sequence. By this point in the narrative, the romantic tensions between the central characters have sharpened, and this cue appears to score one of Persephone’s lower emotional moments — isolated in the castle, uncertain of her husband’s feelings. Its nearly three-minute length gives the orchestra room to breathe without overstating the emotion.
“Wolf Attack” (6:18) is the longest single cue on the entire album and the clear dramatic centerpiece of the score’s second half. The series involves a dangerous encounter with wolves in the forest surrounding Falstone Castle — a plot point referenced directly in the episode descriptions — and this track almost certainly scores that sequence in full. At over six minutes, it likely builds from tension into full orchestral action music, carrying the scene through from threat to resolution.
“Persephone and Adam’s Dance” (3:04) lands near the album’s close and suggests a moment of warmth and romantic breakthrough — possibly the ball sequence referenced in the third episode, where the Duke arranges a dance to help his wife feel more at home. The title alone signals this as one of the score’s more tender, uplifting cues.
“Hades Goes After Persephone” (4:30) closes the album with what is clearly a mythologically framed action sequence — the episode title “Hades Goes After Persephone” draws directly on the Greek myth that runs as a symbolic thread through the story, with the Duke’s character paralleling the god of the underworld. At nearly four and a half minutes, this closing cue suggests a dramatic, full-orchestra finale that brings the series’ central conflict to its peak before the resolution.
Seeking Persephone Licensed Songs / Needle Drops
No licensed songs or needle drops have been confirmed for Seeking Persephone through Tunefind, WhatSong, SeekerTune, or any other song-placement database as of the date of this article.
This is consistent with the production’s approach: Seeking Persephone is a period mini series set in Regency England in 1805, a context in which the use of licensed contemporary or popular recorded music would be anachronistic. The production’s creative emphasis was placed squarely on the original orchestral score, as confirmed by director John Lyde’s public statements about the importance of the music to the project’s overall atmosphere.
The score album itself contains 25 tracks covering the full dramatic range of the series, further supporting the conclusion that the show relied entirely on Schafer’s original composition rather than licensed material.
James Schafer Composer Filmography
| Year | Title | Medium |
|---|---|---|
| 2026 | Seeking Persephone | TV Mini Series |
| 2026 | Sleeping Beauty Next Door | Film |
| 2023 | The Ballad of Songbirds And Snakes | Film |
| 2025 | Beauty and the Billionaire | TV Series |
| 2025 | Christmas Roses | Film |
| 2024 | Invader | Film |
| 2024 | Love Across Time | Film |
| 2023 | Mythica: Stormbound | Film |
| 2023 | Cinderella in the Caribbean | Film |
| 2021 | Love, Lost & Found | Film |
| 2021 | The Outpost (Seasons 2 & 3) | TV Series |
| 2020 | Finding Grace | Film |
| 2020 | Shattered Memories | Film |
| 2020 | Romance in the Air | Film |
| 2018 | The Outpost (Season 1) | TV Series |
| 2018 | Not Cinderella’s Type | Film |
| 2016 | Mythica: The Godslayer | Film |
| 2014 | Saints and Soldiers: The Void | Film |
| 2014 | The Christmas Dragon | Film |
| 2013 | The Letter Writer | Film |
| 2013 | One Shot | Film |
| 2013 | Silent Night | Film |
| 2012 | Finnick and Annie (Hunger Games fan project) | Album |
Sources: Soundtrack Tracklist, TMDB, TV Guide, IMDb, Amazon Music, Apple Music.
Where to Listen to the Seeking Persephone Soundtrack
The Seeking Persephone original score is available on all major digital streaming and download platforms. Listeners can find the album on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music for streaming, and on iTunes/Apple Store and Amazon for digital purchase. The score was released digitally under James Schafer Music and does not appear to have a physical release. The series itself is available to stream or purchase on Prime Video and Fandango at Home, and is also accessible to Angel Guild members on the Angel platform.
FAQs
Who composed the Seeking Persephone soundtrack?
The score for Seeking Persephone was composed by James Schafer, a Utah-based composer for film and television. Schafer is best known for his work on the TV series The Outpost (2018–2021) and has a long creative partnership with director John Lyde through Mainstay Productions.
How many tracks are on the Seeking Persephone soundtrack?
The official score album contains 25 tracks with a total runtime of approximately 1 hour and 5 minutes.
When was the Seeking Persephone soundtrack released?
The score album was released digitally on February 6, 2026, nearly four weeks before the series premiered on Prime Video and Fandango at Home on March 1, 2026.
Was the Seeking Persephone score recorded with a live orchestra?
Yes. Director John Lyde confirmed in a published interview with KSL.com that the score was recorded with a live orchestra in Bulgaria.
Where can I stream the Seeking Persephone soundtrack?
The soundtrack is available on Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music. It can also be purchased through iTunes and Amazon.
Are there any licensed songs in Seeking Persephone?
No licensed songs or needle drops have been confirmed for Seeking Persephone through any public song-placement database. The production appears to rely entirely on James Schafer’s original orchestral score.
What is the longest track on the Seeking Persephone soundtrack?
“Wolf Attack” is the longest individual cue on the album at 6 minutes and 18 seconds, followed closely by “The Lancasters Depart” at 6 minutes and 1 second.