History and Development
The history and, above all, the birth and emergence of the
Hindemith Music Centre, formerly Chalet de Lacroix, are intimately
connected with the American musician couple Helen and Howard Boatwright
and with Marius Décombaz, a notary in Vevey.
The owners of the Chalet, the daughters of Victor Lacroix, who were very
closely involved with music, made their large house available to musicians
of the region as a working site on certain occasions. Courses, concerts,
chamber music weekends and much more took place here. Many young music
students who are today recognised musicians and successful in the world of
music took their first steps into concert life in this house or prepared
to do so. The Boatwrights were informed of this by their friend, the
singer Hugues Cuenod, who lived in Vevey.
In the summer of 1968 the Boatwrights, both professors at the University
of Syracuse, USA, visited Blonay for the first time in order to seek out
the grave and final residence of Paul and Gertrud Hindemith. Howard
Boatwright had been a pupil and later a university colleague of
Hindemith's. Consequently he knew his extraordinary abilities as a teacher
and intended to continue Hindemith's pedagogical concerns in summer
courses. Twenty further stays in Blonay, in the form of "Summer
Academies" at which the Boatwrights' own and other students took
part, were to follow this first one. In this inofficial way, their desire
to establish Blonay as the European branch office of the University of
Syracuse was fulfilled. The first courses of the Boatwrights, carried out
together with Hugues Cuenod as singing instructor in 1969, were called
Ecole Hindemith. Accordingly the concerts held in the church La Chiésaz
in the neighbouring community of St.-Légier were named Concerts
Hindemith, and subsequently Journées Paul Hindemith.
All these activities were known at the beginning to the lawyer Marius Décombaz mentioned above, for the Boatwrights and Hugues Cuenod contacted him immediately. As executor of the estate of Paul and Gertrud Hindemith as well as their long-term friend and confidant, these courses naturally interested him very much, and the idea gradually ripened in him to acquire the Chalet de Lacroix for the Foundation. In this way the "practical area" of activities mentioned in the will could find its own house: in 1974 an initial first part of the house was bought from one of the owners; on 12 August 1976 the second part was likewise turned over to the Hindemith Foundation and with it the entire Chalet de Lacroix complete with the large 17,000-square-metre park with its old stock of trees and incomparable view over Lake Geneva. The second decisive step of the still young Foundation, following the opening of the musicological Institute in Frankfurt, was thus accomplished. After the purchase of the house followed an extensive phase of construction, remodelling and enlargement: bathrooms, showers, a kitchen and above all three working studios were installed on the ground floor, in order to offer the guests optimal accommodation and to make a period of work in a peaceful and inspiring atmosphere possible.
On 1 July 1978 the official opening of the house during the tenth
season of the Journées Paul Hindemith took place. The concert of 30 June
was entitled Hommage à Helen et Howard Boatwright à l'occasion de la 10e
session de l'Ecole Hindemith. Marius Décombaz looked after the first
courses with great idealism and personal engagement until the applicants
became too numerous; in 1980, a Résidente, a "good soul of the
house" was found for this task in the person of Anne-Charlotte Van Cleef.
During the following years the activities of the house truly
flourished; the members of the Foundation Council encouraged the coming of
many famous musical personalities. The Journées Paul Hindemith, in their
second decade, with concerts, lectures, courses and other events were led
by the aforementioned Helen and Howard Boatwright and Hugues Cuenod, as
well as the Melos, LaSalle, Kreuzberger and Buchberger Quartets, the
Quartet Sine Nomine, Bruno Giuranna, Siegfried Palm, Saschko Gavriloff,
Johannes Goritzki, and Karl Engel; the musicologists included Andres
Briner, Alfred Rubeli, Bernhard Billeter, Theo Hirsbrunner, Kurt von
Fischer and Dieter Rexroth. Outside of the Journées, the following
musical personalities were also active in Blonay: Igor Ozim, Walter Levin,
Giacinto Caramia, Rocco Filippini, Bruno Canino, Thomas Hengelbrock, Gidon
Kremer and Edison Denisov. Orchestras that came to Blonay include the
Freiburg Baroque Orchestra, the Concerto Cologne, the Young German
Philharmonic, the German Chamber Philharmonic and the Ensemble Contrechamp
from Geneva.
Alongside these important activities of international renown, chamber
music groups, choirs, orchestras and singing classes for amateur musicians
from all over Switzerland and abroad were guests at the Centre from the
very beginning, completely in tune with the spirit of Hindemith, for
weekends, study weeks or for concert preparation. Thus the beautiful house
became an edifying and relaxing place to many people from far and wide,
where one could work remarkably well; many of them gladly returned to
Lacroix.
The ever-increasing activities of the Music Centre necessitated
the building of a second house; in 1988 the so-called Pavilion was
officially opened, a building with ten double rooms, a medium-large
working and concert area as well as two additional workrooms. The
Hindemith Music Centre had now reached its present size.
In 1997 the intensive engagement of the Hindemith Foundation towards the
Music Centre was underlined by an important decree of the Foundation
Council: to restore the former garden house, the third building on the
property, which had meanwhile fallen into a desolate state. A demolition
and new construction were taken into consideration at that time; because
of the beautiful building material, a renovation was decided upon.
The Résidente during the first twenty years, Anne-Charlotte Van Cleef, went into a well-deserved retirement and turned over the directorship to Samuel Dähler. This last directed from the 1st April 2000 until the 30 september 2003 the Centre of Music. He was responsible for the direction and upkeeping of the house. In addition to these duties, he expanded the offerings of the Music Centre and thereby brought new groups to Blonay.
As from the 1rst January 2004, Marcel Lachat leads the Hindemith Centre for Music in Blonay. With this activity, Marcel Lachat takes up a new challenge and gives his professional career a new turn whilst remaining faithful to his profession of welcome and service.
Thus the management and the coordination of the various activities of the Center of Music, its development and general management is henceforth in the hands of a hotel professional capable of assuming an irreproachable running and upkeep of the musical Center.
Marcel Lachat is very happy to be able to put to the use of the Hindemith Foundation all his know-how and energy so that the Center of Music may increase its influence in Switzerland and abroad.