Near the end of the story, I am huddled over a score of Liquid Interface with John Adams, working out rehearsal notes during a marathon week with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. We only heard a week ago that we’d be in this together, yet John has already mastered much of the work — including the brief harmonica passage, which tickled him.

But that’s near the end; let’s start at the beginning.

One of the great pleasures of composing for orchestra is sending a piece out into the world and watching it take flight. My biggest symphonic work, Liquid Interface, lifted off beautifully a few years ago under Leonard Slatkin at the National Symphony. The orchestra, first a bit quizzical about a ‘water symphony’ integrating electronica beats, ultimately gave the piece a much-appreciated bear hug, taking it the next year to their annual visit to Carnegie Hall.

Leonard was a dream collaborator from the beginning. He generously commissioned the work based on a narrative overview, passed along to him by my mentor John Corigliano (to whom the piece is dedicated). When those words became notes, Leonard fixed his laser-attention on the smallest musical details so superbly that the premiere went off without a hitch. Pretty soon the work was being programmed under a variety of wonderful conductors spread far and wide, and Leonard programmed it this season with Los Angeles and Pittsburgh.

But suddenly in October, he suffered a heart attack. Instant medical attention was hand, thankfully, and within a few days word trickled out that his characteristic vigor had returned. His conducting was put on about as brief a hiatus as one could imagine, given the circumstance of a heart attack. But Liquid Interface’s Los Angeles performances happened to fall into the short window of Leonard’s downtime.

This is why cover conductors are always on hand — to step in on a moment’s notice.

John Adams, however, had no business conducting this piece. In the midst of presiding of the LA Phil’s Left Coast festival, he had two other programs to conduct that week, and a supremely capable conductor was on hand to cover the show (Jace Ogren). But, as he told me, he very much liked the piece and wanted to take it on.

So there I was, the week before the show, making my first visit to his home in Berkeley (about two minutes from my own) to look at the score together.

Liquid Interface covers a lot of musical terrain, all encapsulated in something of a climate narrative. In this update of a ‘water symphony,’ we begin with ice (“Glaciers Calving”) and end in hazy evaporation (“On the Wannsee”). As the temperature creeps up in each movement, so does the tension, climaxing in a electronically-processed flood whipped up by frenetic, New Orleans-inspired swing. The more I compose, the more interest I have in creating large, conceptual shapes that are driven by unique music. Neo-narrative forms do not really exist these days, so I love to go wild with them.

But John did not first take note of this grand plan. He was all about the notes, rhythms, harmonies, orchestrations — in short, the zoomed-in, nitty-gritty detail. The way the glacial chords of the first movement unfold over massive trip-hop beats, or how quicksilver figuration dances mercurially with droplet samples in ‘scherzo liquido’ — these were the things we spoke about. Sitting with a master of the orchestra in his home, pouring over a piece you spent so many months creating, hearing his comments on this passage or that — what a dream.

Ultimately, though, the large-scale form of the work became very much of interest to him. He did an admirable job of communicating this to the musicians in the short period of time we had. So when that flood in the third movement hits, the musicians had a slightly more zoomed-out perspective than their individual parts.

Liquid Interface was but one ball that John juggled that week — his Dharma at Big Sur and a Zappa program were also up the air. So I was even more touched by his devotion to the work in the midst of quite a juggling act.

A few weeks later, I swung by his home with a jar of a homemade eggnog. I like to call it ‘nostalgia in a Mason jar,’ because more than anything — more than the cognac, the dark rum, the bourbon, the eggs, or the cream — comes the rush of remembrance of an East Coast Christmas. (The concoction is decidedly old-school.)

As soon as John took a sip, he leaned back and declared ‘Now that takes me back!’

For sure, it was a pittance of a thank-you for all he had done. But hey, East Coast nostalgia is worth a lot out here.

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