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American composer Gordon Getty has contributed more than forty 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. The San Francisco Symphony premiered several of his new choral works at Davies Symphony Hall in June 2023. His Old Man Trilogy, three choral settings of his original poetry, will be premiered in July 2024 at Festival Napa Valley.

With the publication of “Upon A Day: Verse and Other Writings” Getty presents an impressive compendium of verse, program notes, and notes on the Four Libretti. Informatively enhanced for the reader's benefit with the inclusion of a formal Introduction and an Afterword by Getty, we are presented with a literary treasure of insights into an authentically gifted and distinctive poetic voice for our times.

An inherently fascinating read that is impressively well organized and presented, this hard cover edition of Gordon Getty's “Upon A Day: Verse and Other Writings” from Authority Publishing is especially and unreservedly recommended for personal, professional, community, and college/university library Contemporary Poetry collections and supplemental curriculum Contemporary Classical Music studies lists.

June 2024

 —

“I saw him once again. It was the white
Of winter, all white everywhere, all new.”

In this poetry collection, childhood memories exist beside odes dedicated to musical greats, poetry's heroes, and religious figures such as Saint Christopher. Carefully placed between the verses are program notes—short essays that establish the theme and tone for the poems that follow them. The poems themselves capture philosophical anecdotes about art, music, literature, and everyday existence. Colored paintings, drawings, and photographs add an artistic and visual flair to this book. The text even features a Shakespeare-inspired libretto adapted from Henry IV (Parts 1 and 2) and Henry V as well as a Poe-inspired libretto adapted from “The Fall of the House of Usher.” Thus, this collection is a unique combination of prose, poetry, and drama that possesses a personal, intimate flair. 

Musicality rings through each and every poem, essay, and dramatic piece in this book. Most evident, too, is a celebration of life and the art and literature that make it beautiful. The program notes included throughout the text are like sitting down and having a personal conversation with the author. They provide readers with deep insight into the inspiration behind the poem or dramatic piece, and they also help them understand the personal contexts from which that inspiration arrived. For those interested in drama, this collection offers them new takes on old favorites. The poetry inspires one to appreciate the traditional forms that contemporary poetry is so swiftly forgetting. Most of all, this book encourages readers to find the music behind every single one of life's moments and capture it in their very own way.

July 2024

 —

The carol is a medieval Christmas genre, widespread in Anglo-Saxon countries, whose origins can be found in the French carole, a ritual dance, accompanied by religious songs, in vogue between the 12th and 14th centuries.

Having fallen into almost total oblivion after the Anglican schism of the sixteenth century, the carol was brought back into fashion at the end of the nineteenth century, favored by a return to the popular forms of the past, which found approval from a large number of English authors, also taking root in North American traditions.

But in recent decades, especially across the ocean, the genre has been completely ignored by all musicians.

Californian Gordon Getty, born in 1933 in Los Angeles, noticed this and asked some of his colleagues to give new life to Christmas musical literature. The final result is enclosed in the hybrid Super Audio CD by Pentatone (distributed in Italy by Ducale Music), entitled “December Celebration,” which includes pieces by seven composers.

In order of age, the youngest is Luna Pearl Woolf (1973), present with How Bright the Darkness, on a text by the American Eleanor Wilner.

Then we find Mark Adamo (1962) and Jake Heggie (1961) authors respectively of The Christmas Life, on a lyric by the British Wendy Cope, and On the Road to Christmas which, among others, uses the poems of Frederica von Stade and Emily Dickinson.

From David Garner (1954) is the Three Carols, while Carol (Neighbors, on this Frosty Tide) is the contribution of the couple formed by the mezzo-soprano Joan Morris (1943) and the composer William Bolcom (1938).

John Corigliano, perhaps the most famous of all in Europe, is responsible for Christmas at the Cloisters and, finally, Gordon Getty has also carved out a personal space for himself, with Four Christmas Carols and an arrangement of the famous Stille Nacht by Franz Grüber.

Overall, we find pieces that respond perfectly to the initial purpose, recreating the typical atmosphere of carols, also emphasized by the contribution of a group of excellent performers, formed by Lisa Delan (soprano), Lester Lynch (baritone) and the Volti Chorus for the vocal part, and by Steven Bailey (piano and Hammond organ) and members of the New Century Chamber Orchestra for the instrumental part, all under the direction of Dawn Harms.

We close, as is our tradition, with best wishes to all the readers of Nuova e Nostra for a Christmas full of peace and serenity.

2015

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Like wine, the quality of an artist's work is not determined by age, nor is the vigor of an audience. This was evident at Festival Napa Valley on Thursday, July 18. The day began with a book launch for 90-year-old Gordon Getty and concluded with a showcase of vocalists mostly in their 20s, with all events attended by a multigenerational audience flocking to wine country from all over this country and several continents.

The celebration of Getty's Upon a Day: Verse and Other Writings (Authority Publishing) was staged in the morning on the mezzanine of CIA at Copia in downtown Napa. Getty is best known to the festival as a longtime contributor of music and financial support, and attendees at the book event included friends and acquaintances. Upon a Day features author's notes and librettos from four of Getty's operas and lyrics from choral works and song cycles. Getty cultivates and lays out his elegantly worded lines much as the benign climate of the Napa Valley fosters carefully arrayed rows of succulent grapes.

Not long after obtaining the book and the author's autograph, folks headed down the hall to the Ecolab Theatre for a program of art songs by soprano Lisa Delan, pianist Kevin Korth, and clarinetist David Barnett.

Delan could rightly be dubbed a Renaissance woman. In addition to her singing career, she's director of Rork Music (named for Getty's mother, Ann Rork) and of the Ann and Gordon Getty Foundation. For the afternoon concert's opening offering, five of Louis Spohr's Six German Songs, Delan provided new translations. Dressed in a beguiling floor-length vintage gown by Roberto Cavalli, she conveyed the drama of lieder with a richly brewed flow of sound, matching Spohr's references to a Napa-like environment of birds in trees. Korth was lucid and forthright in accompaniment. Barnett, though he may have had reed challenges, was particularly affecting in “Wiegenlied” (Cradle song), placed physically and compositionally in intimate relation to the vocalist.

Carl Loewe's Scottish Images featured clarinet and piano in a triptych of pastiches. The clarinet could have been more prominent in the matchup, perhaps with amplification.

Jake Heggie's Three Folk Songs brought enticingly unexpected voicings to familiar tunes, the composer eliciting the psychodrama in “Barb'ry Allen,” the vocalist having us perceive the perspectives of both the fated characters and the empathetic narrator. With Heggie's spare, wistful, and spot-on “He's Gone Away,” Delan demonstrated the art of singing story, commanding the room with subtle motions of head and hands. For “The Leather-Winged Bat,” she placed hands on hips and affected a colloquial vocalization, impishly partnered by Korth.

“Unlocked,” also composed by Heggie, counted both as a world premiere and the first time Delan, also a published poet, has sung her own verse. The words were difficult to make out, but the composition pleasantly evoked the music of Carlisle Floyd, ending with the accompaniment in blithe unison with the singer's vocalese and humming.

In casual conversation at the book launch, Getty had bellwethered the evening's opera concert by saying, “There'll be a slew of young singers, and they're all scary good!” He assessment was mostly right. The satisfyingly variegated program on the Festival Napa Valley Stage at the Charles Krug Winery showcased nine of the Manetti Shrem Opera Fellows in selections from Mozart to Richard Strauss to the world premiere of Getty's complete Old Man Trilogy.

An early highlight was the credibly ingenuous tenor Hongrui Ren as Rodolfo in La bohème, glowingly supported by Festival Orchestra Napa under the baton of Dana Sadava. Soprano Pelagia Pamel as Mimi was equally appealing but not as strong a singer as Ren.

The very different dynamics of Verdi's Don Carlos paired bass Atticus Rego, an earnest and vulnerable Filippo, with bass Morgan-Andrew King, a scarily imperious Inquisitore. The power play was unavoidably evocative of election-year politics.

Several of the standout singers appeared later in the concert in roles reflective of their dramatic breadth: Ren a very different lover as the Duke in Rigoletto and Rego as the titular seducer in Don Giovanni, with King as his sardonic wingman, Leporello.

Soprano Stephanie Chee and mezzo-soprano Leah Finn made for a pretty pair of songstresses in the “Sous le dôme épais” duet from Leo Delibes' Lakmé, enhanced by a huge floral projection on the back of the stage and conducted with a light touch by Zach Salsburg-Frank. The piece fitted the blithe beckoning of a Silverado evening.

The skill of stage director Alek Shrader in making use of limited space and two onstage mics worked to particularly delightful effect in “Contro un cor che accende amore” from Rossini's The Barber of Seville, in which Finn returned as a saucy, vibrant Rosina, deploying a mocking meta-approach and fine breath control. From the podium, Sadava advanced the charm and comedy skillfully.

Getty's Old Man Trilogy gathers together three similarly themed verses set to music. The piece brought to the stage Festival Napa Valley Volti Chorale and conductor Ming Luke. “The Old Man in the Morning” elicited majestic vocal harmonies over a warmly wrought foundation of strings and harp.

For the oratorio-like “The Old Man in the Night,” Getty artfully works the different sections of the chorus, as well as the orchestra's horns, woodwinds, and mallet percussion. The urgent kineticism of the strings at times evoked Verdi. Lyrics were audible and elegantly sung.

“The Old Man in the Snow” was written by Getty in 2020 in memory of his wife. It calls back affectingly to earlier parts of the triptych, with the composer's trademark eddies and clarion calls musing over a naturalistic soundscape, all coordinated empathetically by Luke. “What we who knew and saw may stay to teach,” the chorale sang, “to strangers in the speech and song of men.” Anthemic, the music raised goose bumps appropriate to the composer's sentiment and to the approaching chill of Napa dusk.

The same sort of midsummer magic summoned all nine singers back to the stage for a finale of “Make Our Garden Grow” from Leonard Bernstein's Candide. Tenor Sid Chand warmed hearts and ears in the title role, with soprano Chloe Boelter a powerfully appealing Cunegonde, their peers joining them in celebrating the splendor of life's basic imperatives. We can expect that Napa will persist in making its grapes grow and bringing us beautiful music among its vineyards in summers to come.

July 23, 2024

 —

“Music and verse stand outside the jurisdiction of reason.” So, what really is reason other than the power of the mind to think and relate to the world around it? Gordon Getty's Upon a Day is a fascinating look at a musician and poet whose work spans the realms of reason through verse, lyrics, opera, and other forms of musical expression. This multi-gifted artist has given the world a view of what it means to be alive, from historical references to people and places like “The Death of Lancelot” and “Joan and the Bells.” The power of the word is evident in this wordsmith's verse or added to lyrics.

Gordon Getty's book, Upon a Day: Verse and Other Writings, is a memoir of sorts as the compilation within this volume spans one man's life. With written notes on the various works being shared, the author reveals his life and the reasoning behind each work. The book is chronologically presented and accompanied by illustrations to add zest to the material presented. The author/ poet uses multiple verse forms, from rhyming verse with regular stanzas to sonnets in the style of Shakespeare. The language is rich and full of musical associations. As a musician, I appreciated the musical intonation and nuances in the language used. His penchant for the written word and the indelible depth of humanity is so much in keeping with some of the literary greats like Shakespeare, Whitman, and Ondaatje. Powerful stuff – entertaining, educational, and full of life.

Aug 1, 2024

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James Hilton's 1934 novella about teacher Mr. Chipping and his life at an all-boys British boarding school now finds new life as an opera. Goodbye, Mr. Chips was premiered as a filmed production in 2021 due to Covid restrictions and this EP offers highlights from the soundtrack. Tenor Nathan Granner charms as the title character, reflecting on loss in ‘Long Remembered', where the Young People's Chorus of New York City represent the students of Brookfield, his much-loved school. The story is told through flashbacks, including dalliances with one headmaster (‘Ralston's Redemption'), sung by bass-baritone Kevin Short, through whom we discover some of Mr Chips's less wholesome pupils. There are also recollections of Kathie, Chipping's wife who died during childbirth. Soprano Marnie Breckenridge sweetly foreshadows the tragedy in ‘Chips darling it's started', a lyrical aria with colourful orchestration including harp and piano. This style is echoed in a later interlude, with melodic writing for strings, piano and tuned percussion. The reasons for releasing just six tracks are unclear – nonetheless the selection whets one's appetite for the full-scale score.

November 2, 2022

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There was ample intoxication in downtown Napa on Saturday evening, in the spirits and sounds of the Young People's Chorus of New York City, as the group performed in the bucolic outdoor amphitheater of the Culinary Institute of America at Copia.

YPC, now in its 35th year, delightfully closed the first week of Festival Napa Valley's summer season. It was conducted joyously by Francisco J. Nuñez, who founded the ensemble when he was barely older than these teenage singers.

Aside from age, this group showcases diversity with regard to race, nationality, and body type. Similarly variegated is its repertoire, with the Saturday program's opener, the Kyrie from Mozart's Missa brevis in D Major, K. 194 (written in 1774, when the composer was 18), proving something of an outlier. The “eleison” in the movement, though sincerely delivered, seemed at odds with the balmy atmosphere and the graceful background of well-tended trees, rising behind the 42 choristers and their accompanying instrumentation of piano, cello, and violin (occasionally doubling on percussion).

Several fine sopranos and tenors had solo step-outs, as they would throughout the concert. Nuñez has pointed out that “the voice parts are very fluid,” but it seemed that baritone and bass voices were less in evidence, with no detriment to quality.

With its second number, folk songs of indigenous people arranged by Brazilian choir leader Marcos Leite, the chorus changed both genre and language and deployed finger snaps, bird whistles, and the sounds of a thunderstorm and swayed with the rhythm. For a setting of chorister Ana Maria Griffin Morimoto's text “De la boca,” by composer Julia Wolfe (who was present), the language shifted to Spanish. In another of YPC's trademarks, soloists and smaller ensembles stepped forward in brief segments of the delightfully arranged piece.

The liveliness lingered and expanded through five sections from Gordon Getty's Young America (2004, recorded a year later on Pentatone). Several of the performing boys had appeared as Brookfield School students in Getty's 2021 filmed opera, Goodbye, Mr. Chips. The composer's trademark quizzically chromatic reshapings of expected melodic movement were engagingly conveyed by this endemically extroverted ensemble, its tonality true through the alternative harmonizations, interestingly structured as a sort of double duet in the “Heather Mary” section, a pair of girls “addressing” a pair of the boys. With one exception, Getty also penned the lyrics to these sections, including the brief personal recollection “My Uncle's House,” playfully evoked by the young singers.

For “Daughter of Asheville,” violinist Emma Hathaway stepped out to accompany coupled choristers waltzing and singing in 6/8 time, this composer's tangy melodies and occasional open-fifth voicings painting a pretty picture of young romance. His years matching the 88 chromatic steps of a keyboard, Getty rose from his place to smilingly acknowledge the sustained approbation from his fellow audience members after the finish of his fun setting of Stephen Vincent Benét's “When Daniel Boone Goes by at Night.”

Lester Lynch, a frequent collaborator with YPC, soloed on “He's Got the Whole World in His Hands,” arranged in part by Lynch and Noam Faingold. Lynch's burnished baritone worked well against the high massed voices of the youth, modulating ever upward on verse after verse. He returned later, for “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” arranged by Faingold and Peter J. Wilhousky. The chorus again followed the emotive Lynch in good order, on into the slowed final verse and its fortissimo finish.

Nuñez spoke of his admiration for the recently deceased Stephen Sondheim before leading a medley from Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein's West Side Story, arranged by Matt Podd and very much fitting the YPC in terms of place and age. The contributions of the ensemble's principal choreographer, Jacqueline Bird, were dramatically showcased here, particularly in the excerpts of “I Feel Pretty” and “America.” The segues from song to song and from soloist to tutti were well handled. Soprano Mikayla Sager and tenor Mario Chang joined the ensemble, Chang sounding particularly polished.

The quiet, modal sound of “Mo Li Hua,” a Chinese folk song arranged vocally by Chen Yi and instrumentally by Nuñez, was an impressive changeup, but the harmonic and melodic purity was pleasantly presented and enhanced by the placement of the violin at the rear of the amphitheater at the beginning of the piece and the placid movement of the girl choristers, with large orange fans serving also as percussion. “Take Me to the Water,” by Rollo Dilworth, incorporated quotes from several African American spirituals. The boys executed athletic choreography; the girls paraded with white gossamer parasols.

Festival favorite and former Miss America Nia Imani Franklin sweetly sang a brief a cappella sample of gospel from her hometown Baptist church, to introduce the world premiere of her composition Polaris. Melodically and lyrically simple but meaningful, the piece ended with a recitation of the names of victims of racism, some familiar, some overlooked by the media. A standing ovation earned an encore with Paul Simon's “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” arranged by Kirby Shaw with lucent voicings and extra peppiness appropriate to these singers.

For this reviewer, this is the most kinetically exciting species of chorus I've ever seen, apart from a Broadway or movie musical. The group is living proof of the purpose and power of music in the personhood of young people. And its ability to embrace difference inspires as much as it entertains.

A quarter of YPC's full complement of 2,000 students, age 8 to 18, is represented in AloneTogether, a multimedia exhibition in the lobby of the CIA at Copia throughout the festival. Involving poetry, sculpture, and film as well as music, the exhibition examines the lives of children impacted by lockdown, global turmoil, and transformative activism over the past few years.

July 19, 2022

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GORDON GETTY'S OPERA GOODBYE, MR. CHIPS had its New York premiere on March 2 at the Walter Reade Theater, reimagined as a film and co-presented by New York City Opera and Festival Napa Valley. Based on James Hilton's novella, the opera is a series of nested flashbacks celebrating the long, well-lived life of an English schoolmaster. Mr. Chips (né Chipping) is the archetypal beloved teacher who never had children of his own, but lays claim to the thousands of boys he influenced over more than half a century. He's the sort of teacher students adore even as they mock his eccentricities, bemused by his corny Latin puns that they nonetheless never forget. Mr. Chips is almost too good to be true, a vessel of compassion and decency who meets others where they are and takes them at face value. He shares this generosity of spirit with his wife, Kathie, who remains his guiding light even after her life is tragically foreshortened. 

Composer/librettist Getty hews closely to the book, adding color and depth particularly where Kathie is concerned. The score is traditional and tonal, with recitatives and arias, soaring choral anthems, and a predilection for heroic high notes. Francisco J. Núñez's outstanding Young People's Chorus of New York City sang in video projections as the schoolboys, while the principal singers were filmed on set in San Francisco. In addition to being the safe, expedient choice, it was also dramatically sound. The boys exist primarily as phantoms in the aged Chips's mind; only he and the school itself withstand the test of time. Brian Staufenbiel's confident direction capitalized on the advantages of film. Old Chips morphed into younger Chips via cross-fades, and the vista expanded gradually from intimate interiors to reveal the limited universe of Chips's life: sitting room, great hall, hospital bed. 

The performers were impressively at ease in front of the camera. Nathan Granner was a winning, worthy Chips, credible at every age, conveying his emotions with a stirring tenor of equal parts metal and warmth. He projected strength, dignity, compassion and joy, and was especially moving when singing to, with or about Kathie. With his relaxed, avuncular presence and robust baritone, Lester Lynch was an ideal Merrivale, the young doctor to whom Chips unpacks his life and who serves as narrator. An active listener and an engaging storyteller, Lynch was the perfect foil for Granner, communicating to the audience that Chips's stories are not new to him, while laughing with Chips as if he's hearing them for the first time. Soprano Marnie Breckenridge was a lovely Kathie, full of sugar, spice and common sense, singing with pristine high notes and a rosy middle register. She also gave voice to the lad who appears on Chips's death day and bids him farewell with an echo of her sad, haunting “Good-bye, Mr. Chips.”

With his thundering bass-baritone, Kevin Short was fearsome as the upstart headmaster Ralston, whose unsuccessful attempts to knock Chips off balance were accentuated by disconcerting camera angles. Wigs and facial hair facilitated Short's doubling as the contrastingly congenial school chairman, Rivers. In each era, a solitary boy singing live represented the others, and several returned as ghosts during a climactic set piece in which Chips forges ahead with an apt Latin lesson (Caesar's fight against the Germans) as the WWI bombs fall. All the young soloists inhabited their roles with poise and dramatic focus. 

The opera, affecting though it is, sometimes drags due to a surfeit of repetition, with too many reprises of moments the audience has already seen. Some of the arias overstayed their welcome, and the piece stalled in storytelling mode at the beginning before Granner stepped into the action as his younger self. Nicole Paiement led the orchestra with authority, illuminating the thorniness of the instrumental texture that adds piquancy to the idealized patina of Chips's nostalgia. Jacquelyn Scott's production design featured detailed sets, and Callie Floor's attractive costumes evolved with the eras of Chips's life.

March 2, 2022

 —

The awe-inspiring Primavera Project, co-directed by Matt Haimovitz and Dr. Jeffrianne Young, explores the influence and inspiration of music and art. Its six-release series is comprised of 81 world premiere solo cello compositions commissioned for Haimovitz. Each composer was asked to respond to Sandro Botticelli's enigmatic painting, Primavera, and the prophetic large-scale triptych, Primavera 2020, by world-renowned contemporary artist Charline von Heyl. This second release Primavera II: the rabbits takes its name from the rabbit trilogy motive in von Heyl's visuals.

Haimovitz's arrangement of Josquin des Prez's Kyrie (from Missa Hercules Dux Ferrariae) opens. His conversational four-part contrapuntal playing ranges from moving, to dark singing tone colour above full harmonic chords. This is followed by 13 new works, each lasting under ten minutes. It is so fascinating to hear each composer's own musical perception of the visuals. For example, Missy Mazzoli's Beyond the Order of Things (after Josquin) has a contemporary orchestral storytelling sound with rhythms, pitch slides, fast runs and sudden atonal held notes. Tomeka Reid's energetic Volplaning is an intense response to the paintings. Sudden loud single-line phrases and rhythmic detached notes add to the running and bouncing rabbit sensibility. Gordon Getty's Spring Song is a slow, calming Romantic-style-influenced work, clocking in under the two-minute mark. Plucks, repeated notes and upbeat rock strings have the rabbits bopping in a bar in David Balakrishnan's Theme and Variants.

Haimovitz understands and interprets each diverse work, playing all lines in stunningly beautiful, must-listen-to passionate performances.

April 21, 2022