Juliette Nadia Boulanger (French: [ʒyljɛt nadja bulɑ̃ʒe]; 16 September 1887 – 22 October 1979) was a French music teacher, conductor, and composer. She taught many important composers and musicians from the twentieth century and sometimes performed as a pianist and organist.

She was born into a musical family. Her father, Ernest, and her sister, Lili, were well-known composers. Boulanger began studying at the Conservatoire de Paris when she was very young. However, she believed she did not have strong skills in writing music, so she chose not to compose and instead became a teacher. In this role, she helped many young composers, especially those from the United States and other English-speaking countries. Some of her students included Grażyna Bacewicz, Daniel Barenboim, Elliott Carter, Aaron Copland, Philip Glass, and over 250 others.

She taught in the United States and the United Kingdom at music schools such as the Juilliard School, the Yehudi Menuhin School, the Royal College of Music, and the Royal Academy of Music. However, most of her life, she taught from her family home in Paris. She taught for most of the seven decades between the start of her career and her death at age 92.

Boulanger was the first woman to lead many major orchestras in America and Europe, including the BBC Symphony, Boston Symphony, Hallé, and Philadelphia orchestras. She conducted the first performances of works by composers such as Copland and Stravinsky.

Biography

Juliette Nadia Boulanger was born in Paris on September 16, 1887, to Ernest Boulanger (1815–1900), a French composer and pianist, and Raissa Myshetskaya (1856–1935), a Russian princess who was descended from St. Mikhail Tchernigovsky.

Ernest Boulanger studied at the Paris Conservatoire and won the highly desired Prix de Rome for composition in 1835 when he was 20 years old. He composed comic operas and music for plays, but he was best known for his choral music. He became well respected as a director of choral groups, a teacher of voice, and a member of choral competition juries. After many years of being turned down, he was hired as a professor of singing at the Paris Conservatoire in 1872.

Raissa became a home tutor in 1873. According to Ernest, they met in Russia in 1873, and she followed him back to Paris. She joined his voice class at the Conservatoire in 1876, and they married in Russia in 1877. Ernest and Raissa had a daughter, Ernestine Mina Juliette, who died as an infant before Nadia was born on her father’s 72nd birthday.

During her early years, Nadia was upset by hearing music and would hide until it stopped. In 1892, when Nadia was five, Raissa became pregnant again. During the pregnancy, Nadia’s reaction to music changed. “One day I heard a fire bell. Instead of crying and hiding, I rushed to the piano and tried to copy the sounds. My parents were amazed.” After this, Nadia paid close attention to the singing lessons her father gave and began to learn the basics of music.

Her sister, named Marie-Juliette but known as Lili Boulanger, was born in 1893 when Nadia was six. When Ernest brought Nadia home from a friend’s house and before she could see her mother or Lili, he made her promise to take care of the new baby. He encouraged her to help care for her sister.

From the age of seven, Nadia prepared for her Conservatoire entrance exams by attending classes and taking private lessons with teachers. Lili often stayed in the room during these lessons, listening quietly.

In 1896, when Nadia was nine, she entered the Conservatoire. She studied with Fauré and others. She came in third in the 1897 solfège competition and later won first prize in 1898. She had private lessons with Louis Vierne and Alexandre Guilmant. During this time, she also received religious instruction to become an observant Catholic and took her First Communion on May 4, 1899. Catholicism remained important to her for the rest of her life.

In 1900, her father Ernest died, and money became a problem for the family. Raissa had an expensive lifestyle, and the royalties from Ernest’s music were not enough to support them permanently. Nadia worked hard at the Conservatoire to become a teacher and help support her family.

In 1903, Nadia won the Conservatoire’s first prize in harmony. She continued to study for years, earning money through organ and piano performances. She studied composition with Gabriel Fauré and won first prize in three categories in 1904: organ, accompagnement au piano, and fugue (composition). At her accompagnement exam, Boulanger met the famous French pianist, organist, and composer Raoul Pugno, who later supported her career.

In the autumn of 1904, Nadia began teaching from the family apartment at 36 rue Ballu. In addition to private lessons, she held a Wednesday afternoon group class in analysis and sight singing. She continued these classes almost until her death. This class was followed by her famous “at homes,” gatherings where students could meet professional musicians and Boulanger’s friends, such as Igor Stravinsky, Paul Valéry, and Fauré.

After leaving the Conservatoire in 1904 and before her sister’s death in 1918, Boulanger was an active composer, encouraged by Pugno and Fauré. Caroline Potter, writing in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, noted that Boulanger’s music was often highly chromatic (though always based on traditional scales), and she was influenced by Debussy. Her goal was to win the First Grand Prix de Rome, as her father had done. She worked hard toward this goal while balancing teaching and performing. She first submitted work for judging in 1906 but failed to advance past the first round. In 1907, she reached the final round but did not win.

In late 1907, she was appointed to teach elementary piano and accompagnement au piano at the newly created Conservatoire Femina-Musica. She also became an assistant to Henri Dallier, the professor of harmony at the Conservatoire.

In the 1908 Prix de Rome competition, Boulanger caused a stir by submitting an instrumental fugue instead of the required vocal fugue. The issue was discussed in newspapers and resolved when the French Minister of Public Information ordered the work to be judged based only on its musical quality. She won the Second Grand Prix for her cantata, La Sirène.

In 1908, Boulanger performed piano duets in public concerts and collaborated with Pugno on a

Pedagogy

Boulanger was asked about the difference between a well-made work and a masterpiece. She said she enjoyed all "good music." Lennox Berkeley noted that she valued a good waltz as much as a good fugue because she judged music based on its artistic quality. She admired Debussy and followed Ravel’s teachings. She did not support Schoenberg or the Viennese dodecaphonicians but strongly supported Stravinsky.

She believed that full attention was essential in all tasks. She said, "Anyone who acts without paying attention is wasting their life. I would say that life is denied by a lack of attention, whether it is cleaning windows or writing a masterpiece."

In 1920, two of her favorite female students left her to marry. She believed they had abandoned their musical training and their duty to music. Her views on women in music were mixed: though she respected Lili’s success and her own role as a teacher, she believed a woman’s primary duty was to be a wife and mother. Ned Rorem said she often gave male students more benefit of the doubt than female students. She saw teaching as a joy, a privilege, and a responsibility. She said, "No one is required to give lessons. It poisons your life if you give lessons and it bores you."

Boulanger accepted students from all backgrounds, as long as they wanted to learn. She treated students differently based on their ability: talented students were challenged with difficult questions and expected to perform well under pressure. Students who were not pursuing a music career were treated more gently. Michel Legrand said that some students she disliked received a first prize quickly, while others who were more capable never received rewards. She believed each student required a unique approach: "When you accept a new pupil, the first thing is to try to understand what natural gift or intuitive talent they have. Each individual poses a particular problem." She said, "It does not matter what style you use, as long as you use it consistently." Boulanger used many teaching methods, including traditional harmony, score reading at the piano, species counterpoint, analysis, and sight-singing using fixed-Do solfège.

When she reviewed a student’s composition, she often compared it to the works of other composers. For example, she might say, "These measures have the same harmonic progressions as Bach’s F major prelude and Chopin’s F major Ballade. Can you not come up with something more interesting?" Virgil Thomson found this process frustrating, saying that following her advice could ruin a piece by forcing it to follow standard patterns. Copland recalled that Boulanger believed in creating "la grande ligne"—the long line in music. She did not support innovation for its own sake, saying, "When you are writing music, never strain to avoid the obvious." She emphasized the importance of using an established musical language while expressing one’s individuality. Quincy Jones said Boulanger told him, "Your music can never be more or less than you are as a human being."

Boulanger claimed she could not give her students creativity but could help them become intelligent musicians who understood the craft of composition. She said, "I can’t provide anyone with inventiveness, nor can I take it away; I can simply provide the liberty to read, to listen, to see, to understand." She believed that inspiration, not skill alone, made the difference between a well-made piece and an artistic one. She believed that the desire to learn and improve was enough to achieve success, as long as the right effort was made. She used examples like Rameau (who wrote his first opera at fifty), Wojtowicz (who became a pianist at thirty-one), and Roussel (who started studying music professionally at twenty-five) to show that great artists do not always begin as gifted children.

Boulanger had an extraordinary memory. By age twelve, she had memorized all of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. Students said she knew every important piece by every significant composer. Copland recalled,

Murray Perahia remembered being "awed by the rhythm and character" of her performance of a Bach fugue. Janet Craxton said listening to Boulanger play Bach chorales on the piano was "the single greatest musical experience of my life."

Honours and awards

• 1932 – Received the title of Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur
• 1934 – Awarded the Order of Polonia Restituta
• 1962 – Became a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• 1962 – Received the Howland Memorial Prize
• 1975 – Awarded the Médaille d'Or by the Académie des Beaux-Arts of the Institut de France
• 1977 – Appointed Grand Officier of the Légion d'honneur
• 1977 – Received the Order of the British Empire
• 1977 – Awarded the Order of St. Charles of Monaco
• 1977 – Received the Order of the Crown of Belgium
• 2012 – Inducted into the American Classical Music Hall of Fame

Key works

• Allons voir sur le lac d'argent (A. Silvestre), 2 voices, piano, 1905
• Ecoutez la chanson bien douce (Verlaine), 1 voice, orchestra, 1905
• Les sirènes (Grandmougin), female chorus, orchestra, 1905
• À l'aube (Silvestre), chorus, orchestra, 1906
• À l'hirondelle (Sully Prudhomme), chorus, orchestra, 1908
• La sirène (E. Adenis/Desveaux), 3 voices, orchestra, 1908
• Dnégouchka (G. Delaquys), 3 voices, orchestra, 1909
• More than 30 songs for one voice and piano, including:

Chamber and Solo Works
• 3 pièces, organ, 1911, arranged for cello and piano
• 3 pièces, piano, 1914
• Pièce sur des airs populaires flamands, organ, 1917
• Vers la vie nouvelle, piano, 1917

• Allegro, 1905
• Fantaisie variée, piano and orchestra, 1912

• Les heures claires (Verhaeren), 8 songs, 1 voice, piano, 1909
• La ville morte (d'Annunzio), opera, 1910–13

Recordings

• Mademoiselle: Premiere Audience – Unknown Music of Nadia Boulanger, Delos DE 3496 (2017)
• Tribute to Nadia Boulanger, Cascavelle VEL 3081 (2004)
• BBC Legends: Nadia Boulanger, BBCL 40262 (1999)
• Women of Note – Koch International Classics B000001SKH (1997)
• Chamber Music by French Female Composers – Classic Talent B000002K49 (2000)
• Le Baroque Avant Le Baroque – EMI Classics France B000CS43RG (2006)
• Faurè Requiem, Op. 48, EMI Reference, PM 322, 1979