What happens when the composer shows up to the first rehearsal of his brand-new piece? Conceived and realized in partnership with Q2 Music’s podcast “Meet the Composer, Splitting Adams” is Alarm Will Sound’s tribute to American composer John Adams, and in particular to his works Chamber Symphony (1992) and Son of Chamber Symphony (2007). For those who don’t know: Alarm Will Sound is the name of that chamber orchestra focusing on contemporary classical music; Q2 is the name of a podcast on New-Jersey based classical radio station WQXR-FM focusing on classical works by living composers. This podcast-plus-performance, presented on one and same album, offers unprecedented access to not only to the creative process, but the weird, woolly procedure of putting these massive pieces together. It is presented with commentary tracks from MTC’s host Nadia Sirota, Alarm Will Sound’s artistic director Alan Pierson, and the composer himself, conveying a rare sense of interaction for the listener; not only does the music, rendered in all its lush detail by the ever-adept musicians in AWS, capture and connect the long trajectory between the two works, but the commentary also shines a revealing light on the story behind the music. “Meet the Composer” with host Nadia Sirota takes listeners into the minds and creative processes of the composers making some of the most innovative, compelling and breathtakingly beautiful music today. At the convergence of interview, music and sound design, “Meet the Composer” aims to show the listener who the composer is as a person, as a thinker and as an artist. Of course, for the English-speaking aficionado, the title Splitting Adams is a pun on the 2015 TV-comedy Splitting Adam, but the parallel ends there. The musical part of the album covers both the 1992 Chamber Symphony and its “sequel” Son of Chamber Symphony composed 2007.© SM/Qobuz