Noble et grande servante de la musique: Telling the Story of Nadia Boulanger's Conducting Career

Abstract

Even today, despite inroads made by women in many fields formerly reserved for men, it is difficult for female orchestral conductors to gain critical and popular acceptance. It was just. as difficult in the 193os, when Nadia Boulanger burst onto the international conducting scene. Within only a few years of conducting her first entire program in 1933, she became the first woman to appear as a conductor for the Royal Philharmonic Society and the first to direct the orchestras of Boston and Philadelphia. Before the end of the decade she had become one of the few women to appear with the National Symphony and the New York Philharmonic; she had directed dozens of Parisian orchestras, and conducted for radio in France, Belgium, England and the United States. Her astonishing success was due to a com-