Juliette Nadia Boulanger (French: [ʒyljɛt nadja bulɑ̃ʒe] ; 16 September 1887 – 22 October 1979) was a French music teacher, conductor and composer. She taught many of the leading composers and musicians of the twentieth century, and also performed occasionally as a pianist and organist.
Born into a musical family (her father Ernest and sister Lili were acclaimed composers), Boulanger entered the Conservatoire de Paris at an early age but, believing that she lacked particular compositional talent, she forsook writing music and became a teacher. In that capacity, she influenced generations of young composers, especially those from the United States and other English-speaking countries. Among her students were many important composers, soloists, arrangers, and conductors, including Grażyna Bacewicz, Daniel Barenboim, İdil Biret, Elliott Carter, Aaron Copland, David Diamond, John Eliot Gardiner, Philip Glass, Roy Harris, Quincy Jones, Dinu Lipatti, Igor Markevitch, Astor Piazzolla, Julia Perry, George Walker, and over 250 others.
She taught in the United States and the United Kingdom, working with music academies including the Juilliard School, the Yehudi Menuhin School, the Longy School, the Royal College of Music and the Royal Academy of Music, but her principal base for most of her life was her family flat in Paris. There, she taught for most of the seven decades from the start of her career until her death at the age of 92.
Boulanger was the first woman to conduct many major orchestras in America and Europe, including the BBC Symphony, Boston Symphony, Hallé, and Philadelphia orchestras. She conducted several world premieres, including works by Copland and Stravinsky.
Juliette Nadia Boulanger was born in Paris on 16 September 1887, to French composer and pianist Ernest Boulanger (1815–1900) and his wife Raissa Myshetskaya (1856–1935), a Russian princess, who descended from St. Mikhail Tchernigovsky.
Ernest Boulanger had studied at the Paris Conservatoire and, in 1835 at the age of 20, won the coveted Prix de Rome for composition. He wrote comic operas and incidental music for plays but was most widely known for his choral music. He achieved distinction as a director of choral groups, teacher of voice, and a member of choral competition juries. After years of rejection, in 1872 he was appointed to the Paris Conservatoire as professor of singing.
Raissa qualified as a home tutor (or governess) in 1873. According to Ernest, he and Raissa met in Russia in 1873, and she followed him back to Paris. She joined his voice class at the Conservatoire in 1876, and they were 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.
Through her early years, although both parents were very active musically, Nadia would get upset by hearing music and hide until it stopped. In 1892, when Nadia was five, Raissa became pregnant again. During the pregnancy, Nadia's response to music changed drastically. "One day I heard a fire bell. Instead of crying out and hiding, I rushed to the piano and tried to reproduce the sounds. My parents were amazed." After this, Boulanger paid great attention to the singing lessons her father gave, and she began to study the rudiments 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 their friends' house and before she was allowed to see her mother or Lili, he made her promise solemnly to be responsible for the new baby's welfare. He urged her to take part in her sister's care.
From the age of seven, Nadia studied in preparation for her Conservatoire entrance exams, sitting in on classes and having private lessons with the teachers. Lili often stayed in the room for these lessons, sitting quietly and listening.
In 1896 the nine-year-old Nadia entered the Conservatoire. She studied there with Fauré and others. She came in third in the 1897 solfège competition and subsequently worked to win first prize in 1898. She took private lessons from Louis Vierne and Alexandre Guilmant. During this period, she also received religious instruction to become an observant Catholic, taking her First Communion on 4 May 1899. The Catholic religion 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 extravagant lifestyle, and the royalties she received from performances of Ernest's music were insufficient to live on permanently. Nadia continued to work hard at the Conservatoire to become a teacher and be able to contribute to supporting her family.
In 1903 Nadia won the Conservatoire's first prize in harmony. She continued to study for years, although she had begun to earn money through organ and piano performances. She studied composition with Gabriel Fauré and, in the 1904 competitions, she came in first in three categories: organ, accompagnement au piano, and fugue (composition). At her accompagnement exam, Boulanger met the renowned French pianist, organist, and composer, Raoul Pugno, who subsequently took an interest in her career.
In the autumn of 1904, Nadia began to teach from the family apartment at 36 rue Ballu. In addition to the private lessons she held there, Boulanger started holding a Wednesday afternoon group class in analysis and sight singing. She continued these almost until her death. This class was followed by her famous "at homes", salons where students could mingle with professional musicians and Boulanger's other friends from the arts, such as Igor Stravinsky, Paul Valéry, Fauré, and others.
After leaving the Conservatoire in 1904 and before her sister's untimely death in 1918, Boulanger was a keen composer, encouraged by both Pugno and Fauré. Caroline Potter, writing in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, says of Boulanger's music: "Her musical language is often highly chromatic (though always tonally based), and Debussy's influence is apparent." Her goal was to win the First Grand Prix de Rome as her father had done, and she worked tirelessly towards it in addition to her increasing teaching and performing commitments. She first submitted work for judging in 1906, but failed to make it past the first round. In 1907, she progressed to the final round but again 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 was also appointed as 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 rather than the required vocal fugue. The subject was taken up by the national and international newspapers, and was resolved only when the French Minister of Public Information decreed that Boulanger's work be judged on its musical merit alone. She won the Second Grand Prix for her cantata, La Sirène.