A graduate of the San Francisco Conservatory, where he studied with Sol Joseph (1912-2002), Getty has stuck to a musical language akin to middling Northern European ballet scores circa 1840. Determinedly retro and pale, his works are the aural equivalent of Prince Charles’s watercolour landscapes. 

Defiantly unserious and inconsequential...Getty has created music that can dither in slower works, while up-tempo efforts tend to be merry jigs. Like tycoons in Depression-era Hollywood films whose sour stomachs can only tolerate a diet of digestive biscuits and milk, Getty has opted for musical pablum which, although mildly inoffensive, can ultimately be cloying. The patriotically energised Raise the Colors appears a conscious decision to celebrate life...

The American virtuoso Conrad Tao, still in his teens, can play anything with distinction and gives evocative and sympathetic renditions, like a young Frans Hals creating a dashing portrait of some inherently uninteresting burghers.