She was a composer and a pioneering conductor — the first woman to lead performances by top orchestras, including the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Boston Symphony Orchestra. And she was one of the most influential music teachers of the 20th century, shaping a roster of composers including Aaron Copland, Quincy Jones, Astor Piazzolla and Virgil Thomson.

Now, Nadia Boulanger is posthumously breaking another barrier: This summer she will become the first woman whose work is explored by the three-decade-old Bard Music Festival.



Image Nadia Boulanger, the composer and pioneering conductor, will be the focus of the Bard Music Festival. Credit... Centre international Nadia et Lili Boulanger

This summer’s festival, “Nadia Boulanger and Her World,” will explore the life and legacy of a woman the BBC once called “the greatest music teacher who ever lived.” A Parisian who lived from 1887 to 1979, Ms. Boulanger was so influential in molding a generation of American composers that one of her students, Mr. Thomson, described her as “a one‐woman graduate school so powerful and so permeating that legend credits every U.S. town with two things — a five‐and‐dime and a Boulanger pupil.”