Nadia Boulanger
Nadia Boulanger (1887–1979)
Nadia Boulanger composed several choral, chamber, and orchestral works, and her cantata La Sirène won second place in the 1908 Prix de Rome. After her beloved sister Lili died in 1918, Boulanger largely set aside composition to dedicate herself to teaching. That decision reshaped the history of music. Among her pupils were Aaron Copland, Lennox Berkeley, Elliott Carter, Roy Harris, Walter Piston, and Virgil Thomson — a roster that reads like a who's who of 20th-century composition. She was also among the first women to conduct major orchestras, including the New York Philharmonic, the Boston Symphony, and the BBC Symphony Orchestra. Boulanger's legacy towers over everyone else on this list — she taught half of them.
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