Nadia Boulanger Stamp

This article is about the Nadia Boulanger Stamp from Monaco in 1985. The very first classical musicians on stamps were a group of seven composers on stamps from Austria in 1922. Since then, composers, musicians, singers, and conductors, have been popular on stamps. However, the vast majority of these musicians have been men. There are few women classical musicians on stamps. To see more, check out my articles for Clara Schumann stamps, and for Germaine Tailleferre. This article features one of the most important women teachers and conductors of the twentieth century.

Nadia Boulanger

Nadia Boulanger was born in Paris in 1887 to a musical family. She began her own studies at the age of five and at nine she entered the Paris Conservatorie. With the death of her father in 1900, Nadia began to teach lessons to help support her family. She taught from her family home, which became her main studio for her entire life. In addition to private lessons, this became the sight of group classes in analysis and sight singing. She was also known for hosting salons where her students could mix with professional musicians and other artists.

Boulanger was a composer, pianist, and organist, but the most reliable source of income was as a teacher. To support her sister and mother, she became a teacher at the French Music School for Americans in Fontainbleau following World War I. Aaron Copland was one of the students in her first class there.

International Fame

In 1936, she went to London to broadcast lecture recitals on the BBC and while there, she became the first woman to conduct the London Philharmonic Orchestra. Her fame as a conductor and lecturer led to a prolonged tour in the United States in 1938. There, she gave more than 100 lecture demonstrations and broadcast on NBC. She also became the first woman to conduct the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

After returning to Paris, she assisted many of her European students to escape the Nazi’s into the United States. In 1940, she followed and spent the entire of World War II living and teaching in the US. In 1946, she returned to Paris, where she became a teacher at the Paris Conservatoire and became the director of the Fontainebleau School. She performed, recorded, and taught in Paris for the next three decades. Boulanger continued to teach until right before her death in 1979 at the age of 92. She is buried in the Montmarte Cemetery in Paris.

Famous Students

Boulanger taught some of the most important twentieth century musicians across several generations and genres. She was especially influential in educating American musicians, both during her time in the United States, and in Paris. Among her most famous students were Aaron Copland, Elliott Carter, Philip Glass, John Eliot Gardiner, Astor Piazzolla, Virgil Thomson, Daniel Barenboim, Quincy Jones, and Burt Bacharach, among many others.

The Stamp

Nadia Boulanger appears on a 1985 stamp from the country of Monaco. Her stamp was one of two that year from Monaco featuring famous French twentieth-century musicians, they other depicts Georges Auric. The issues were to celebrate a twenty-fifth anniversary of composing award. The stamps are by the famous French designer Pierette Lambert and they are conservative in design, but excellently executed. They are monochromatic, Auric in blue and Boulanger in a brown/maroon color. They feature a portrait of each composer, with a background of sheaves of paper, and musical staves in the corners.

You should definitely check out more about Boulanger. Here, for example, is an interview with Elliott Carter about his studies with this monumentally important musician.