Erland Cooper presented a late-night Prom of classical and ambient music inspired by Radio 3 Unwind’s Ultimate Calm, with two world premieres.
Erland Cooper, the Scottish composer who scored Superbloom at the Tower of London, presented a late-night Prom at the Royal Albert Hall in South Kensington on Thursday 27 August 2026. Ultimate Calm began at 22:15.
Cooper was born and raised in Stromness, Orkney. His albums combine field recordings with classical orchestration and electronics, and a trilogy of them drew on his childhood home.
In spring 2021 he buried the only master tape of his first classical album, a violin concerto, and left clues for fans. Two amateur sleuths found it in September 2022, and the record was released and reached number one in 2024.
The Prom took its idea from Ultimate Calm, the nightly show on Radio 3 Unwind, and went out live on Radio 3. It gave world premieres of Cooper’s new arrangement of Music for Growing Flowers (Nocturne) and Isobel Waller-Bridge’s Solitudes, a BBC commission.
The programme also took in Debussy’s Clair de lune, Jóhann Jóhannsson’s A Pile of Dust and a specially recorded piece from Ólafur Arnalds.
Waller-Bridge, Belle Chen, Lucinda Chua and Alice Boyd joined Cooper, with the City of London Sinfonia and the BBC Symphony Chorus.