Nadia Boulanger

Born into a musical family on 16 September 1887 — her father Ernest and sister Lili both acclaimed composers — Juliette Nadia Boulanger entered the Conservatoire de Paris young but soon believed she lacked real compositional talent. She abandoned writing and turned to teaching instead, a choice that redirected the course of twentieth-century music. Working mainly from her family flat in Paris, she taught for seventy years until her death at 92, drawing students from across the world: Grażyna Bacewicz, Daniel Barenboim, Elliott Carter, Dinu Lipatti, Astor Piazzolla, and hundreds more. She also…