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. 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, there was a debut performance at Leipzig Opera of the The Canterville Ghost opera by Gordon Getty.

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

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

• Usher House (2013, PentaTone Classics)
• Gordon Getty - Piano Pieces (2013, PentaTone Classics)
• The Hours Begin to Sing (2013, PentaTone Classics)
• Gordon Getty - Joan and the bells & Serge Prokofiev - Romeo and Juliet (2003, PentaTone Classics)
• Plump Jack (2012, PentaTone Classics)
• Young America Choral Works (2005, PentaTone Classics)
• The White Election (2009, PentaTone Classics)
• And if the song be worth a smile (2008, PentaTone Classics)
• Orchestral Works (2010, PentaTone Classics)
• The Little Match Girl (2015, PentaTone Classics)
• December Celebration: New Carols by Seven American Composers (2015, PentaTone Classics)

[ Source: Wikipedia ]