Esther Allan (née Boyarsky;

Suwałki Suwałki ( lt, Suvalkai; yi, סואוואַלק) is a city in northeastern Poland with a population of 69,206 (2021). It is the capital of Suwałki County and one of the most important centers of commerce in the Podlaskie Voivodeship. Suwałki ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

on April 28, 1914 –

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

Michigan Michigan () is a state in the Great Lakes region of the upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and t ...

on July 21, 1985) was an American

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and Def ...

pianist A pianist ( , ) is an individual musician who plays the piano. Since most forms of Western music can make use of the piano, pianists have a wide repertoire and a wide variety of styles to choose from, among them traditional classical music, ja ...

and organist.Profile
composers-classical-music.com; accessed April 25, 2015.

Early years

Esther Allan was born Esther Boyarsky in

, Poland. Her father was a cantor. She began playing the piano when she was only five, and took her first piano lessons with her mother. Her family moved to England when she was very young, and then to America.

Career

She began working in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

, both as a "classical" pianist (for example she performed

Brahms Johannes Brahms (; 7 May 1833 – 3 April 1897) was a German composer, pianist, and conductor of the mid-Romantic period. Born in Hamburg into a Lutheran family, he spent much of his professional life in Vienna. He is sometimes grouped with ...

's Piano Concerto No. 2 and Gershwin's Concerto in F during a recital at Carnegie Hall) and as a "jazz" pianist, in the vein of the "classical jazz" initiated by

George Gershwin George Gershwin (; born Jacob Gershwine; September 26, 1898 – July 11, 1937) was an American composer and pianist whose compositions spanned popular, jazz and classical genres. Among his best-known works are the orchestral compositions ' ...

and

Dana Suesse Nadine Dana Suesse (; December 3, 1911 – October 16, 1987) was an American musician, composer and lyricist. Biography Dana Suesse was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1909. When she grew too tall for ballet, she began piano lessons with Gertru ...

. In the early 1940s she married American jeweler and department store owner Norman Allan (1908–1999), to whom she dedicated her ''Norman Concerto'', a 6-minute piece for piano and orchestra in the vein of the

Warsaw Concerto The ''Warsaw Concerto'' is a short work for piano and orchestra by Richard Addinsell, written for the 1941 British film ''Dangerous Moonlight'', which is about the Polish struggle against the 1939 invasion by Nazi Germany. In performance it norma ...

, which gained some success at the time and launched her as a composer. Once married, she used only her "American" name Allan, abandoning her maiden name. She worked for a period of time as the pianist in

Phil Spitalny Phil Spitalny (November 7, 1890 – October 11, 1970) was a Russian Empire-born American musician, music critic, composer, and bandleader heard often on radio during the 1930s and 1940s. He rose to fame after he led an all-female orchestra, a nov ...

's all-girl

Hour of Charm Orchestra The Hour of Charm Orchestra was an American musical group led by Phil Spitalny. Popular in the 1930s and 1940s, it was an all-female orchestra in an era when most orchestra members were male. The group was also known as Phil Spitalny's All-Girl O ...

, as well as an affiliate pianist of Aileen Shirley's all-girl orchestra, "The Minoco Maids Of Melody". As a composer, aside from "the Norman Concerto", she wrote other short pieces for piano and orchestra: ''Ocean Rhapsody'', ''Romantic Concerto''... described as being "an exact synthesis between

Rachmaninov Sergei Vasilyevich Rachmaninoff; in Russian pre-revolutionary script. (28 March 1943) was a Russian composer, virtuoso pianist, and conductor. Rachmaninoff is widely considered one of the finest pianists of his day and, as a composer, one of ...

, Gershwin and the

", and ''Meditation for Piano, Harp and Strings'', all homages to her native Poland. These works, as well as "the Norman Concerto", were regularly performed by Allan, accompanied by the Detroit Sinfonietta, conducted by Felix Resnick. A vinyl album of their performances was published in the 1960s. She arranged for piano and orchestra several works, including classical hits as Chopin's Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48, No. 1 and

Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...

's piano sonata No. 17, "The Tempest", and variety songs as "Bethie's Theme", "Enchantment", and "Freddie's Running".Profile
siue.edu; accessed April 25, 2015. She composed numerous short works for piano solo for her own recitals, around thirty songs, some chamber musics (including "Autumn Nocturne" for piano and harp) as well as some larger-scaled orchestral concert works.

Family

She lived in

Detroit, Michigan Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

with her husband and four children. Her oldest child, Sally Allan Alexander, became a piano teacher. Allan performed with several local musical ensembles and hosted many classical piano performances.

Death

She died on July 21, 1985 in Detroit, aged 71, from heart failure.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Allan, Esther 1914 births 1985 deaths 20th-century classical composers 20th-century classical pianists American classical pianists American women classical pianists American women classical composers American classical composers Polish emigrants to the United States 20th-century American pianists 20th-century American women pianists 20th-century American composers Classical musicians from New York (state) 20th-century women composers