Gordon Getty: There Will Be Music

This film introduces audiences to the iconoclastic composer — and the scion of one of America’s most fabled families — who has defied expectations and earned acclaim and acceptance in the rarified world of classical music. Getty’s father, J. Paul Getty, was, at the time of his death in 1976, the richest man in the world. But as the progeny of his father’s fourth marriage, Gordon Getty also inherited a family history that included scandal and tragedy.

Gordon Getty has more than survived; he has earned, on his own, membership in the highest echelons of the worlds of the arts and ideas. He is the author of complex, ground-breaking economic theories, and is an influential philanthropist and patron of the arts.

It is music, however, that is Getty’s chief pursuit. His compositions reflect a rich imagination and mastery of technique as well as his courage to go against the grain of modernism.

Although he thinks that he would have become a composer no matter what, Getty credits his wealth for giving him the unrestricted liberty to compose. Yet he credits his passion for music for lifting the curse of his family's inherited wealth and for letting him avoid all the trappings of money.

The film follows this complex, creative, controversial octogenarian at home and around the globe during an intensely productive period. Documentarian Peter Rosen had access to Getty for almost a decade, in locations including Napa, San Francisco, Mexico, Germany, Russia and Portugal. Rosen’s camera follows Getty during the composition, and at the rehearsals, recordings and performances, of two full-length operas, a cantata, and numerous solo and chamber works. Says Rosen, “Gordon is down-to-earth, unassuming, with no ego — and a truly remarkable musician and man. I hope audiences enjoy spending time with him as much as I did.”