Records from chief composer (8)
I believe the answer is:
archives
'records' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'chief composer' is the wordplay.
'chief' becomes 'arch' (synonyms).
'composer' becomes 'ives' (I've seen this before).
'arch'+'ives'='ARCHIVES'
'from' acts as a link.
(Other definitions for archives that I've seen before include "Collections of old documents" , "data" , "Chronicles" , "Public records" , "Record collection" .)