This is the contemporary chamber ensemble’s second time at the Proms, since their formation in 2016 by artistic director Adam Szabo and music director Rakhi Singh (violin). This Prom is a part of a live tour for their third studio album, NEON, released in June 2023. It’s contemporary music at its most tuneful and accessible, and masterfully performed. The Royal Albert Hall is only about ten percent full, but you’d never know it from the sound of the roaring standing ovation at the finale.

The title track comes from Hannah Peel’s three-movement work about the vanishing art form of neon lights. Peel operates live tape deck and electronic effects, as part of a 7-piece ensemble that bursts with bright, rhythmic ostinati on piano and vibraphone, slowly pittering out with breath effects on flute and clarinet.

The longest piece (and probably the main attraction for Prommers) is Steve Reich’s tuneful and exuberant Double Sextet, which won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Music. It’s performed here as one sextet performing live, on top of a recording of the same sextet earlier that day; like performers interacting with their ghosts. Thanks to clever close-miked sound design (Steve Hughes, Griff Hewis), it’s a fascinating effect that makes you feel like you’re seeing double, right up to the sugar-rush finale.

In addition to these pieces from the album, Ben Nobuto’s SERENITY 2.0 (2021) stands out as a Gen-Z masterpiece; an ironic, frenetic commentary on the impossibility of serenity in a doom-scrolling age. Oliver Leith’s A different ‘Fantasy from Suite No. 5 in G minor’ (2021) and David Lang’s Mystery Sonata No. 7, ‘Glory’ (2018) both reinterpret music from unfamous Baroque composers in meditative, minimalist ways, perfect for a late-night Prom.

Tickets for all 71 Proms are available from just £8 on the BBC Proms 2023 website.