Boulanger, Nadia (nädyä` b

läNzhā`), 1887–1979, French conductor and musician, b. Paris. Boulanger was considered an outstanding teacher of composition. She studied at the Paris Conservatory, where in 1945 she became professor. Boulanger taught at the École normale de Musique, Paris, and (from 1921) at the American Conservatory, Fontainebleau, becoming its director in 1950. As the teacher of such American composers as Walter Piston, Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, Roy Harris, and Marc Blitzstein, she has profoundly influenced American music. She often visited the United States, as teacher, lecturer, organist, and guest conductor of the Boston Symphony (1938) and the New York Philharmonic (1939). She was noted for her conducting of choral works. Boulanger's sister Lily (1893–1918) was a distinguished composer.

Boulanger, Nadia (-Juliette)

Nadia Boulanger.

(born Sept. 16, 1887, Paris, France—died Oct. 22, 1979, Paris) French music teacher and conductor. Having studied composition with Charles-Marie Widor (1844–1937) and Gabriel Fauré, she stopped composing in her twenties (after the death of her sister, Lili, who was also a composer) and devoted the rest of her life to conducting, playing the organ, and teaching at the École Normale (1920–39), Paris Conservatoire (from 1946), and especially the American Conservatory at Fontainebleau (from 1921). She became the most celebrated composition teacher of the 20th century; her many students included Aaron Copland, Roy Harris, Darius Milhaud, Virgil Thomson, Elliott Carter, Leonard Bernstein, and Philip Glass. Her sister, Lili Boulanger (1893–1918), wrote a remarkable amount of vocal and other music and was the first woman composer to win the Prix de Rome (1913).