Nadia Boulangeraus modern

Nadia Juliette Boulanger (* 16 September 1887 in Paris; † 22 October 1979 ibid.) was a French composer, pianist, conductor, music theorist and pedagogue.

Life

Nadia Boulanger was the daughter of the composer, conductor and singing teacher Ernest Boulanger (1815-1900) and the singer Raïssa Mychetskaya (1858-1935), a Russian noblewoman. Her younger sister was the composer Lili Boulanger (1893-1918). She began learning organ and composition from her father at the age of nine. Later she was taught by Louis Vierne (1870-1937) and went to the Paris Conservatoire. As early as 1903, Nadia Boulanger became assistant organist to Gabriel Fauré (1845-1925) at the organ of La Madeleine church. In 1904, at the age of sixteen, she won first prizes in organ, accompaniment and composition, and in 1908 she won second prize in the Grand Prix de Rome in composition for her cantata La Sirène. She had a Mutin-Cavaillé organ in her flat in the Rue Ballu.

In 1914 she composed “Three Pieces” for violoncello and piano. The pianist Raoul Pugno (1852-1914) championed Nadia Boulanger and performed her Rhapsodie variée for piano and orchestra under her direction. He also composed a number of works together with her, such as the song cycle of the Bright Hours (Heures claires). After his death, Nadia Boulanger devoted herself more to music education, orchestral conducting and the dissemination of her sister Lili Boulanger’s work. From 1921, she taught at the École Normale de Musique and at the newly founded Conservatoire Américain in Fontainebleau. In the same year, she travelled to the USA for the first time, where she gave regular master classes from then on. She became one of the most famous composition teachers of the 20th century.

She taught the French composer Maurice Journeau, for example, and several generations of American composers were among her students, including Aaron Copland, Gerardo Guevara, Astor Piazzolla, Quincy Jones, Roy Harris and Philip Glass. Among the many Polish composers she taught are names such as Grażyna Bacewicz, Zbigniew Bargielski, Wojciech Kilar, Stefan Kisielewski, Zygmunt Krauze, Krzysztof Meyer, Marta Ptaszyńska, Kazimierz Serocki, Stanisław Skrowaczewski, Michał Spisak, Witold Szalonek, Antoni Szałowski, Stanisław Wiechowicz and Antoni Wit. Her greatest piano pupil was the Romanian Dinu Lipatti (1917-1950), with whom she made their first joint recordings in 1937. Her recording of the Brahms Waltzes op. 39 for four hands is probably unrivalled to this day. She also had a close friendship with Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971). She taught his son Svyatoslav Sulima Stravinsky (1910-1994), who also became a well-known musician, and arranged for Igor Stravinsky to teach at Harvard University.

When she conducted the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1938, she broke into a traditionally male domain. It was her first appearance outside France and the first time that orchestra had been under the baton of a woman. Her reputation as a conductor grew, especially in connection with modern works and early music, for which she was a strong advocate.

During the Second World War, she lived in the USA as a teacher. She returned to Paris in 1946. She took up a professorship at the Paris Conservatoire, where she taught until her death. However, she found perhaps her most important role as director of the Conservatoire Américain in Fontainebleau, an open, English-language summer academy of international standing.

Her flat in Paris became the meeting place of the French musical world. Among those who frequented the “Boulangerie” (French for bakery) were Aaron Copland, Maurice Ravel, Arthur Honegger, Leonard Bernstein, Priaulx Rainier, Grażyna Bacewicz, Vilayat Inayat Khan and Noor-un-Nisa Inayat Khan and Thea Musgrave, to whom she gave instruction in harmony, composition, counterpoint, musical analysis and instrumentation. At times she also taught at the Yehudi Menuhin School in England.
Source Wiki: https://ene.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadia_Boulanger