Performances

Festival Napa Valley presents Festival Live! Forrest Eimold, with pianist-composer Forrest Eimold performing a program of Gordon Getty’s piano music. The program includes Four Traditional Pieces, selections from Ancestor Suite, First Adventure, Scherzo Pensieroso, the West Coast Premiere of Follow Me, and the World Premiere of Impenitent Ultima.

Des Moines Metro Opera, in partnership with Des Moines Film, presents two screenings of Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Gordon Getty’s opera reimagined for film. Directed by Brian Staufenbiel and conducted by Nicolle Paiement, the film stars Nathan Granner, Marnie Breckenridge, Lester Lynch and Kevin Short. 
View the “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” trailer here.

Festival Napa Valley presents Uytengsu Family Opening Night, with mezzo-soprano Joyce DiDonato singing songs and arias, including composer Luna Pearl Woolf’s world premiere orchestrations of two songs from Gordon Getty’s The White Election: “Beauty Crowds Me” and “The Going From a World We Know.” The program also features violinist Tessa Lark and the Festival Orchestra Napa, conducted by Clelia Cafiero.

Festival Napa Valley presents soprano Alexandra Armantrading, baritone Lester Lynch, and pianist Kevin Korth in an intimate recital of song and operatic music that includes the world premiere of How Shall I Learn?—a new setting by Luna Pearl Woolf of Gordon Getty’s poem “Sonnet”—as well as the duet for Hostess and Falstaff from Getty’s opera Plump Jack. The program also includes music of Verdi, Barber, Berg, Schubert, Mahler, Poulenc and Bach.

The San Francisco Symphony, conducted by James Gaffigan, performs three of Gordon Getty’s works for chorus and orchestra—St. Christopher, the Intermezzo from the opera Goodbye, Mr. Chips, and The Old Man in the Snow. Also on the program are Mozart’s Ave verum corpus, K. 618, and Verdi’s Requiem.

Festival Napa Valley will premiere Gordon Getty’s Old Man Trilogy at its Vocal Fantastique concert. The choral works (“The Old Man in the Night,” “The Old Man in the Morning” and “The Old Man in the Snow”) are written for chorus and orchestra and will be performed by the Volti Chorale and Festival Orchestra Napa.

Art credits from left to right: BTEU/Gerfototek / Alamy Stock Photo • The Garden at Eragny in Spring by Camille Pissarro (Photo © Christie’s Images / Bridgeman Images) • Sunset on the sea by Giuseppe Fattori / Galleria d’Arte Moderna, Palazzo Pitti, Florence, Italy (Luisa Ricciarini / Bridgeman Images)

This summer, audiences across the UK can experience Gordon Getty’s film adaptation of his opera Goodbye, Mr. Chips. Schedule of upcoming screenings:
 22 June: Corn Exchange, Wallingford, UK
 28 June: Bewdley Community Cinema, Bewdley, Worcestershire, UK
 29 June: Stockbridge Music Hub, Edinburgh, Scotland
 12 July: Davis Hall, West Camel, Yeovil, Somerset, UK
 13 July: Chew Stoke, UK
 20 July: Friends Meeting House, Barnt Green, UK
 15 August: Whitaker Museum & Art Gallery, Rossendale, Lancashire, UK

Photo: Arran Bee

On May 10, Alexandra Armantrading, Lisa Delan, Kevin Korth, and Bruce Rameker will perform the vocal compositions Hostess‘s Aria from the opera “Plump Jack,” The Ballad of Poor Peter from the song cycle “Poor Peter,” and Four Dickinson Songs. Following the short recital will be a screening of Peter Rosen’s documentary “There Will Be Music,” which offers a glimpse into the musical life of Mr. Getty.

On May 11, the film of the opera Goodbye, Mr. Chips will be screened, followed by a Q&A with the film’s producers, Lisa Delan and Nicolle Foland. Renaud Loranger, the festival’s artistic director, will moderate.