France, Oct. 25 -- Any discussion of Nadia Boulanger typically begins with a list of famous men.

Aaron Copland, Virgil Thomson, Elliott Carter, Philip Glass, Daniel Barenboim, Burt Bacharach, Quincy Jones - she taught them all.

"I would challenge folks to find another teacher in history who has had the kind of track record and success that she has had with teaching composers and sending them out in such a wide variety of styles," says Kimberly Francis, a feminist musicologist at the University of Guelph in Canada.

"It's almost unheard of."

Boulanger's achievements are staggering, but they do not begin or end with her best-known male students. In between those names lies another story, one that academics like Francis are helping to unc...