September 16, birthday of Nadia Boulanger

Since July, I have been concentrating solely on female composers.  You can read about that in my post from July 19.  If I can’t find one born on the calendar day, I won’t post.  On with today’s composer.

Nadia Boulanger is probably the greatest music educator who ever lived. Among her pupils:

• Aaron Copland,
• Roy Harris,
• Quincy Jones,
• John Eliot Gardiner,
• Elliott Carter,
• Dinu Lipatti,
• Igor Markevitch,
• Virgil Thomson,
• David Diamond,
• İdil Biret,
• Daniel Barenboim,
• Philip Glass and
• Astor Piazzolla.

Her piece below was written in 1912 some 20 years before Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on a theme of Paganini.” Let me know if you hear any similarities.

Fantaisie pour piano et orchestre