Venues & stages
Centre de Musique Hindemith
- Type
- Music and training centre
- Address
- Chemin du Lacuez 3, 1807 Blonay
The Hindemith Music Centre is set in the Lacroix chalet, a villa built around 1900 above Lake Geneva, in Blonay. Faithful to the open spirit of Paul Hindemith, it offers everyone courses, workshops and seminars on a wide range of musical themes: master classes, offerings for amateurs and young pupils, even research seminars in musicology. It is run by the Hindemith Foundation.
The Hindemith Music Centre
The Lacroix chalet, a musical tradition
Long before the Centre, music was already being made in this vast villa built around 1900 above Lake Geneva: the Lacroix family made it available to musicians of the region and held courses, concerts and chamber-music weekends there. In 1968 a former American student of Hindemith, the composer, violinist and musicologist Howard Boatwright, discovered this tradition during a visit to Blonay. With his wife, the singer Helen Boatwright, he launched from 1969 the summer courses known as the “Hindemith School”, later the “Paul Hindemith Days”.
The Hindemith Foundation in Blonay
In 1976 the Hindemith Foundation bought the Lacroix chalet; restored, it was inaugurated in 1978 as the “Hindemith Music Centre, Blonay”. The Foundation enlarged the centre with a pavilion in 1988, then converted in 2000 the “Maison Marius Décombaz” (lodgings and offices). It has been directed by Ann-Charlotte van Cleef (1980-2000), Samuel Dähler (2000-2003), Marcel Lachat (2004-2023), then Véronique Erard since 1 January 2024.