Alice Theresa Hildagard Swanson Esty (November 8, 1904 – July 21, 2000) was an American actress, soprano and arts patron who commissioned works by members of Les Six and other French composers, and American composers such as Ned Rorem, Virgil Thomson and Marc Blitzstein, among others.
She earned an A.B. degree from Bates College in 1925. She then moved to New York City to study singing and acting. She was hired as an actress with the Group Theater, which was directed by Lee Strasberg and Harold Clurman, and with the Provincetown Players, an avant-garde theater. Her Broadway credits include Come of Age, with Judith Anderson, and L'Aiglon, with Ethel Barrymore.
She married William C. Esty, founder of the William Esty Advertising Agency in the 1930s.
Esty continued her interest in the arts, and she began to commission works by many noted composers, poets, and visual artists. In the late 1950s and early 1960s she spent considerable time in Paris, where she befriended many important composers and artists. Between 1955 and 1969 she regularly commissioned musical compositions, and then performed them in major recital halls, including The Town Hall and Carnegie Recital Hall. If Mrs. Esty's talent as a singer was not perhaps perfect (Ned Rorem referred to her as "a soprano of style and means if not especially of temperament..."), her importance as an arts patron is certainly notable.
Esty lived in Paris frequently in the 1950s and the 1960s and between 1955-1969 she commissioned musical compositions from many French composers including Germaine Tailleferre, Darius Milhaud, Francis Poulenc, Henri Sauguet and others which she performed in her Town Hall and Carnegie Recital Hall concerts. In addition, she also commissioned Poulenc's Sonata for Two Pianos for the American piano duo Gold and Fizdale. In 1964, she commissioned works by French and American composers for a special memorial concert for the recently deceased Francis Poulenc, which she performed in Carnegie Recital Hall.
In 1994 and 1995, Mrs. Esty donated the manuscripts for many of her commissioned works to the Library of Bates College where they are located today. Esty died of cancer in New York. The Esty Professorship of Music at Bates was endowed by her.
Arrieu, Claude, 1903-
Le Sable du Sablier: Melodies pour chant et piano
Text: Louise de Vilmorin
Composed: Undated
Berkeley, Lennox, Sir, 1903-
Automne
Text: Guillaume Apollinaire
Composed: August 1963
Soprano and piano
Berkeley, Lennox, Sir, 1903-
Five Poems by W. H. Auden
Text: W. H. Auden
Composed: 1958
Soprano and piano
Bowles, Paul, 1910-
Roman Suite
Text: Tennessee Williams
Composed: 1960
Soprano and piano
Bucht, Gunnar, 1927-
Sex Arstidssanger
Text: Gunnar Bjorling
Composed: 1965
Mezzo-soprano and piano
Delannoy, Marcel
La Voix du Silence
Text: Maurice Carême
Composed: 1958
Soprano and piano
Dutilleux, Henri, 1916-
San Francisco Night
Text: Paul Gibson
Composed: 1963
Soprano and piano
published by Éditions Alphonse Leduc, Paris
Goehr, Alexander, 1932-
Warngedichte, op. 22
Text: Erich Fried
Composed: 1966-1967
Soprano and piano
Jones, Charles, 1910-
Anima
Text: William Langland
Composed: 1967-1968
Soprano, viola, and piano
Martin, Frank, 1890–1974
Dedicace
Text: Robert du la Haye
Composed: 1945
Soprano and piano
Milhaud, Darius, 1892–1974
L'Amour Chante
Text: Joachim du Bellay, Marie de France, Alfred de Musset, Louise Labe, Arthur Rimbaud, Pierre de Ronsard, Maurice Sceve, and Paul Verlaine
Composed: 1964
Soprano and piano
Milhaud, Darius, 1892–1974
Preparatif a la Mort en Allegorique Maritime
Text: grippa d'Aubigne
Composed: 1963
Soprano and piano
Pinkham, Daniel
The Song of Jeptha's Daughter
Text: Robert Hillyer
Composed: 1963
Soprano and piano
Porter, Quincy, 1897–1966
Seven Songs of Love
Text: Robert Graves
Composed: Undated
Soprano and piano
Poulenc, Francis, 1899–1963
Le Travail du Peintre
Text: Paul Éluard
Composed: Undated
Soprano and piano
Rieti, Vittorio, 1898-
Plus ne Suis
Text: Clément Marot
Composed: 1963
Soprano and piano
Rorem, Ned 1923-
Poulenc
Text: Frank O'Hara
Composed: 1963
Soprano and piano
Rorem, Ned 1923-
A Journey
Text: Andrew Glaze
Composed: 1976
Soprano and piano
Rosenthal, Manuel
Le Jour d'un Mort
Text: Paul Gibson
Composed: 1963
Soprano and piano
Sauguet, Henri
Celui Qui Dort
Text: Paul Éluard
Composed: 1963
Soprano and piano
Sauget, Henri
Les Images (from Vie de Campagnes)
Text: [no information available]
Composed: Undated
Soprano and piano
Sauguet, Henri
Vie des Campagnes
Text: Jean Follain
Composed: 1961
Soprano and piano
Tailleferre, Germaine, 1892–1983
L'Adieu du Cavalier
Text: Guillaume Apollinaire
Composed: 1963
Soprano and piano
Published by Musik Fabrik, France
Tailleferre, Germaine, 1892–1983
Pancarte pour une Porte D'Entree
Text: Robert Pinget
Composed: 1959
Soprano and piano
Published by Musik Fabrik, France
Thomson, Virgil, 1896-
Songs for Alice Esty
Text: Kenneth Koch
Composed: 1959
Soprano and piano
Thomson, Virgil, 1896-
Two by Marianne Moore
Text: Marianne Moore
Composed: 1963
Soprano and piano
Weber, Ben, 1916-
A Bird Came Down the Walk, op. 57
Text: Emily Dickinson
Composed: 1963
Soprano and piano
