Donna Esselstyn Harrison, 99, of Evanston, a prominent voice teacher who wrote a book about the interpretation of lyrics when she was in her 80s, died Monday, Jan. 13, in Presbyterian Home in Evanston. Mrs. Harrison taught privately and at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago and during many summers at the American Institute of Musical Studies in Graz, Austria. Her former students include opera and classical singer Jean Kraft. Mrs. Harrison was born in Lansing, Mich., and graduated from the University of Michigan. She and her husband, Theodore, also a well-known voice teacher, moved to Chicago in the 1930s. After her husband’s death in the mid-1960s, she continued her work as a teacher and accompanist. In 1989 she wrote a book, “The Poetry in Song Literature: A Handbook for Students of Singing” to help singers in their interpretations of works in foreign languages. She wanted people who sang art songs to “understand the words and the poetry and have better interpretation and more natural performance of the song and the artistic aspects of the poetry,” said Dr. Michael Cutrer, a former student who is now a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. “She was a wonderful mentor and adviser to generations of young musicians.”
