Gordon Getty

The American Gordon Getty, a leading philanthropist of the arts, is also a notable composer of operas, choral works, cantatas including his widely performed Joan and the Bells, and many works for solo voice including the song cycle The White Election. Born in Los Angeles in 1933, Getty graduated in English literature from University of San Francisco in 1956, then studied music at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, during which time he composed the Homework Suite for piano, subsequently orchestrated; he completed a bachelor’s degree in 1962, and was awarded an honorary doctorate in 2014. Getty has a particular interest in vocal music, having aspired to be an opera singer and taken lessons in the 1970s from Maria Callas’ former vocal coach, Louise Caselotti. His first opera, Plump Jack, a treatment of Shakespeare’s Falstaff (Getty writing the libretto, as he has for all his operas), was premiered by the San Francisco Symphony in 1984. Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher inspired both Getty’s orchestral Ancestor Suite (2009) and his next opera, Usher House, premiered by Welsh National Opera in 2014, followed by a production by the San Francisco Opera in 2015. Getty has since composed The Canterville Ghost, first staged by the Leipzig Opera in 2015, and Goodbye, Mr. Chips, first released on film in 2021 due to COVID restrictions. Getty was awarded the European Culture Prize in 2019 and inducted into Opera America’s Opera Hall of Fame in 2022.