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Nadia Boulanger

The Modern Period or 20th Century was a time of great change in the artistic world. Both the World Wars and the Great Depression took place during this period and the confusion and turmoil which resulted from these troubling events would be depicted through the artist’s scope.
Many of the greatest artists of all time sprang forth during this period including the legendary Pablo Picasso, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Claude Monet, Eduard Manet, Georges Seurat, Vincent van Gogh, and many more. The same was true with the musical world. Such composers as Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Edward Kennedy (“Duke”) Ellington, and Bela Bartok emerged out of the bleak turmoil which was the
early part of the 20th Century. But the most pristine addition to the musical world was the positive acknowledgement of female composers. Before the 20th Century, women were neither appreciated as novelists, composers, artists, or any level of higher intellect other than that of a housewife. One female in particular stood out among the rest.
Nadia Boulanger was, according to her most notorious pupil, Aaron Copland, “the most famous of living composition teachers” (Monsaingeon 15). Although she herself denies this statement in the Bruno Monsaingeon book Mademoiselle: Conversations with Nadia Boulanger, the facts that add up to Copland’s conclusion are difficult to dispute (Monsaingeon 15). She taught many of the world’s most renowned composers including Virgil Thomson, Roy Harris, Walter Piston, Ross Lee Finney, and Elliott Carter (Grout 883).
She was born in Paris on September 16, 1887 the daughter of Ernest Boulanger, a composer the winner of the Prix de Rome of 1836 (Sadie 96). Nadia’s mother was named Raissa Michetsky (Monsaigeon 19). She was one of Ernest’s students while he was a singing teacher at the Paris Conservatoire (Sadie 96).  
Despite her very musical ancestry, Nadia was frightened by music as a small child. Nadia herself once said, “As a child, I couldn’t bear the least...