After arriving from Europe in 1941, Mom enrolled in classes at Radcliffe College, intending to study to become a music teacher. She also got in touch with the Longy School in Cambridge, because of its association with the École Normale and Nadia Boulanger, who had been teaching there since 1938. Outlining her credentials in a letter to the new director, Melvin Smith, she offered to help with organizing classes and instructing piano, solfège, harmony, and chamber music. She began teaching classes for children in 1942 and so started a long association with the school lasting about 40 years.

The Longy School was founded in 1915 by a French oboist and conductor, Georges Longy, who had studied at the Paris Conservatory and come to Boston to take a position with the Boston Symphony Orchestra. His idea was to train American musicians in a small conservatory modeled after French music schools, and felt that training in solfège, harmony, and music theory was essential to becoming a well-rounded musician. This program of studies was based on the French system of musical studies followed in schools like the École Normale.

Melvin Smith became the director of the school in 1941. After graduating from Harvard, he had studied under Nadia Boulanger at the École Normale and had been responsible for introducing to her teaching other American students, such as Aaron Copeland and Walter Piston, who went on to become influential American composers. It was Walter Piston who had invited Nadia Boulanger to teach at Longy in 1938, and she continued to teach there until the end of the war in 1945, when she returned to France.

From a small beginning in cramped quarters, the school attracted a distinguished faculty and grew slowly in spite of financial challenges. In 1937, the trustees managed to raise enough money to move the school to the large handsome mansion on 1 Follen St., Cambridge, a short distance from Harvard Square. Since then, there have been several additions and renovations, but the school is still there. This is the place where Mom taught in a studio on the second floor for many years, starting with the Saturday morning children’s program, and later, the junior level program for high school students, and the senior level program for aspiring professional musicians.

Of course, we all were encouraged to take music lessons, and I remember well the Saturday morning classes and the 11 AM assemblies when the entire school would gather for short group performances and singing. Music spilled out of every room in the old building and my favorite place to hang out was on the window seat halfway up the massive stair case leading to the second floor. I generally enjoyed my classes, except that I never liked to play for an audience!

In 1977, Mom was asked to become the acting director of the school for a year while the trustees searched for a new director. I remember her saying that she was happy to help the school but felt totally inadequate to engage in fund-raising activities involving socializing with wealthy patrons, which was an important but stressful part of the position. I know she was relieved when they found a new director!

Although she also taught at the New England Conservatory and MIT for a few years in the 1960’s, and enjoyed several summers at Tanglewood in the 1970’s teaching solfège to young conducting fellows and singers, Longy was always at the center of her musical world. In 1990, she wrote a wonderful personal recollection of her 40 years with Longy which you can read here.

Among Dad’s cassette tapes, I found a faculty concert with Mom and other teachers, given in 1971. Thanks to modern technology, you can hear it here!