Boulanger, Nadia (-Juliette)

(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 Faur, 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).

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