Born in Paris, Sept 16, 1887
Died in Paris, Oct 22, 1979
- Not only a composer, Nadia Boulanger was a conductor, the older sister of composer Lili Boulanger, and one of the 20th century’s most influential teachers of composition.
- Boulanger studied at the Paris Conservatory from the age of 10. Her teachers included Widor and Fauré (composition) and Vierne and Guilmant (organ). She placed second in the Prix de Rome competition in 1908.
- Boulanger ceased composing in the 1920s, a few years after the death of her sister Lili. Boulanger felt that her sister had been more talented than herself, so she redirected her own efforts away from original composition, and instead toward teaching, and promoting the music of her sister and other 20th-century composers, notably Stravinsky.32
- Short biography from UNC Chapel Hill
“I’m not sure you did the right thing in giving up composition.”
Gabriel Fauré, to Nadia Boulanger33