Nadia Boulanger (1887 - 1979) was a French music teacher and conductor. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the 20th century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist. She was the elder sister of Lili Boulanger (1893-1918) who was first and for all a composer.
From a musical family, she achieved early honors as a student at the Conservatoire de Paris but, believing that she had no particular talent as a composer, she became a teacher. In that capacity, she influenced generations of young composers, especially from the United States and other English-speaking countries. Some famous students are George Antheil, Grażyna Bacewicz, Daniel Barenboim, Lennox Berkeley, İdil Biret, Elliott Carter, Aaron Copland, John Eliot Gardiner, Philip Glass, Roy Harris, Dinu Lipatti, Igor Markevitch, Astor Piazzolla, and Virgil Thomson - to name a few. “As far as musical pedagogy is concerned - and by extension musical
creation - Nadia Boulanger is the most influential person who ever
lived.” Stravinsky called her "an intellectual Amazon," and Copland
wrote later that their meeting was the most important one in his musical
life.
Boulanger taught in the US and England, but her principal base for most of her life was her family's flat in Paris, where she taught for most of the seven decades from the start of her career until her death at the age of 92. Boulanger was also the first woman to conduct major orchestras in America and Europe, including the BBC Symphony, Boston Symphony, Hallé, and Philadelphia orchestras. She conducted several world premieres, including works by Copland and Stravinsky.
Boulanger’s work as a solo composer includes over 30 songs, chamber music and a Fantaisie variée for piano and orchestra. Her musical language was highly chromatic, though always tonally based. Boulanger stopped composing in the early 1920s to follow her pedagogical calling, but her compositional legacy does include the below delightful 3 Pieces for Cello and Piano (originally written for the organ in 1911, but arranged for cello and piano in 1914).
The 3 Pieces are here played by Bryan Cheng, cello, and Silvie Cheng, piano.
Women Composers Index