Nadia Boulanger

France, 1906–1979

French conductor and teacher whose Paris classes trained a large number of 20th-century composers, among them Copland, Piazzolla and Quincy Jones.

MusicRoots documents 1 artist who influenced Nadia Boulanger and 4 artists Nadia Boulanger influenced in turn. Every connection cites a published source.

Who influenced Nadia Boulanger?

• Gabriel Fauré — Fauré was Boulanger's composition teacher at the Paris Conservatoire and the aesthetic she transmitted to her hundreds of pupils.

Which artists did Nadia Boulanger influence?

• Astor Piazzolla — Boulanger was the turning point: Piazzolla went to Paris hiding his tango past, and she told him to stop imitating classical composers and reinvigorate tango with what he already had.
• Philip Glass — Nadia Boulanger's rigorous counterpoint schooling was what Glass passed through in Paris before turning to minimalism.
• Andrei Volkonsky — Volkonsky's early Paris training (with Nadia Boulanger, before his return to the USSR) grounded the craft behind his radical turn.
• Aaron Copland — Copland was Boulanger's first famous American pupil (1921–24) — the study that founded the 'American sound' generation.