Gordon Getty

Gordon Peter Getty (born December 20, 1933) is an American businessman, investor, philanthropist and classical music composer, the fourth child of oil tycoon J. Paul Getty. His mother, Ann Rork, was his father's fourth wife. When his father died in 1976, Gordon assumed control of Getty's US$2 billion trust. According to the Forbes 400, as of September 2011 his net worth is $2 billion, making him number 212 on the list of the richest Americans.

Life and career

Getty was raised in San Francisco, California, attended St. Ignatius College Preparatory, University of San Francisco and earned a B.A. in music from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He married Ann Gilbert in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Christmas Day, 1964. He has seven children: four sons with his wife, Ann Gilbert Getty, and three daughters with a woman from Los Angeles, Cynthia Beck, with whom he had an affair throughout the 1980s and early 1990s.

He joined the oil business to please his father; however, he eventually sold the family's Getty Oil to Texaco in 1986 for US$10 billion. In 1983, Forbes magazine ranked him the richest person in America with a net worth a little over $2 billion. His current net worth is cited as $2 billion, making him the 212th richest person in the United States.

Getty is one of the nation's leading venture capitalists and philanthropists. In 2002, he donated US$3 million to the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation, a charitable trust. He is a major fundraiser for local and national Democratic Party candidates, and has contributed to the campaigns of Nancy Pelosi, Willie Brown, Gavin Newsom, and John Kerry.

Among a number of professions, Getty is a classical music composer, whose compositions include the opera Plump Jack, Joan and the Bells, piano pieces and a collection of choral works. His one-act opera Usher House was performed by the San Francisco Opera in 2015. Aspiring to become an opera singer, Getty studied in the mid-1970s with Louise Caselotti, a mezzo-soprano who had been Maria Callas' voice teacher (1946–47). He and his wife have supported the fine arts, especially underwriting productions of the San Francisco Opera and the Russian National Orchestra.

In 2002, Getty founded ReFlow, a company which temporarily purchases shares in mutual funds to save funds taxes and commissions.

On April 1, 2015, it was reported that Getty's son Andrew Rork Getty died at his home in Hollywood Hills of what was initially classified as natural causes, however coroner's officials needed to wait for the results of further examination and toxicology tests before making a final determination.

On May 9, 2015 was the premiere at Leipzig Opera of The Canterville Ghost opera by Gordon Getty.

Gordon Getty's life and work was chronicled in Peter Rosen's documentary Gordon Getty: There Will be Music which premiered on February 5, 2016 at Cinema Village in New York City.

Honors and awards

• 1986 – Outstanding American Composer, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
• 2003 – Gold Baton, League of American Orchestras
• 2015 – University of San Francisco Alumnus of the Year

• ^ "Gordon Getty Biography – InstantEncore". www.instantencore.com. Retrieved 2016-04-04. 
• atemkar. "Gordon Getty, Composer and Philanthropist, Named USF Alumnus of the Year". University of San Francisco. Retrieved 2016-04-04. 

List of works

Cantata and Opera

• The Canterville Ghost
• Joan and the Bells
• Plump Jack
• Usher House

Chamber Works

• Traditional Pieces

Choral Works

• Annabel Lee
• Ballet Russe
• Beauty Come Dancing
• La Belle Dame sans Merci
• For a Dead Lady
• The Little Match Girl
• The Old Man in the Night
• A Prayer for My Daughter
• There Was A Naughty Boy
• Those Who Love
• Three Christmas Carols
• Victorian Scenes
• Young America

Orchestral Works

• Ancestor Suite
• Homework Suite
• Overture to Plump Jack
• Traditional Pieces

Piano Works

• Ancestor Suite
• Andantino
• First Adventure
• Homework Suite
• Scherzo Pensieroso
• Traditional Pieces

Songs

• Four Dickinson Songs
• Hostess's Aria
• No My Good Lord
• Poor Peter
• A Prayer for My Daughter
• Where is My Lady
• The White Election

Discography

• The Little Match Girl (2015, PENTATONE PTC 5186480)
• December Celebration: New Carols by Seven American Composers (2015, PENTATONE PTC 5186537)
• Usher House (2013, PENTATONE PTC 5186451)
• Piano Pieces (2013, PENTATONE PTC 5186505)
• The Hours Begin to Sing (2013, PENTATONE PTC 5186459)
• Orchestral Works (2010, PENTATONE PTC 5186356)
• Plump Jack (2012, PENTATONE PTC 5186445)
• The White Election (2009, PENTATONE PTC 5186054)
• And if the song be worth a smile (2008, PENTATONE PTC 5186099)
• Young America Choral Works (2005, PENTATONE PTC 5186040)
• Joan and the bells & Serge Prokofiev – Romeo and Juliet (2003, PENTATONE PTC 5186017)