“There is such a thing as unqualified goodness in the world, and all my music tries to remind the world of that.”
- Gordon Getty
Into his ninth decade, composer Gordon Getty has added more than 40 works to the canon, and his music continues to be performed by leading artists and ensembles in some of the world’s most prestigious venues. San Francisco Symphony premiered several of his new choral works at Davies Symphony Hall in June 2025. His Old Man Trilogy, three choral settings of his original poetry, was premiered in July 2024 at Festival Napa Valley.
Excerpt from Gordon Getty: Beauty Come Dancing, produced by Pentatone, 2018
Goodbye, Mr. Chips, his operatic adaptation of the 1934 novella and short stories by James Hilton, was produced in an innovative cinematic format and premiered in 2021 at the Mill Valley Film Festival, in partnership with Festival Napa Valley. It has since been shown in New York, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, Austin and throughout the UK.
A new recording of Goodbye, Mr. Chips was released on the Pentatone label in January 2025. His other operas, which include Plump Jack, Usher House, and The Canterville Ghost (joined with Usher House as the double bill “Scare Pair”), have been staged in San Francisco, Cardiff, Leipzig, New York and Los Angeles, and have been recorded by Pentatone.
Getty’s Joan and the Bells, a cantata setting of the trial and execution of Joan of Arc, has enjoyed performances in Russia, Germany, France, and England, as well as throughout the US. His Ancestor Suite has been staged by the Bolshoi Ballet and presented in Moscow, Beijing and Shanghai.
His song cycle The White Election, a collection of 32 songs on poems by Emily Dickinson, has been presented at such venues as Lincoln Center, the Kennedy Center, and the Hermitage Theatre in St. Petersburg. His works have been recorded on the Pentatone label by such artists as Michael Tilson Thomas and the San Francisco Symphony, Sir Neville Marriner and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, Mikhail Pletnev and the Russian National Orchestra, Conrad Tao, Matt Haimovitz, Lisa Delan, Melody Moore, Susanne Mentzer, Lester Lynch, Nikolai Schukoff and Vladimir Chernov.
The composer has received numerous awards and honors, including League of American Orchestra’s Gold Baton, Kennedy Center Outstanding American Composer, European Culture Prize, Opera America’s Opera Hall of Fame, San Francisco Opera’s Spirit of the Opera, and Young People’s Chorus of New York City’s Legacy Honoree.
His work is published by Rork Music.
Michael Tilson Thomas and Gordon Getty at San Francisco Symphony’s Salute To Gordon Getty, 2014/ Photo: © Ellian Raffoul/Moanalani Jeffery photography (courtesy of San Francisco Symphony)
“My style is undoubtedly tonal, though with hints of atonality, such as any composer would likely use to suggest a degree of disorientation. But I’m strictly tonal in my approach. I represent a viewpoint that stands somewhat apart from the twentieth century, which was in large measure a repudiation of the nineteenth and a sock in the nose to sentimentality. Whatever it was the great Victorian composers and poets were trying to achieve, that’s what I’m trying to achieve.”
- Gordon Getty