Music was being made in the Chalet Lacroix, the spacious villa built overlooking Lake Geneva around 1900, long before the establishment of the Hindemith Music Centre there. The previous long-term owners, members of the Lacroix family, regularly made their home available to musicians from the region, organising courses, concerts or chamber music weekends. During a visit to Blonay in 1968, a former pupil of Hindemith in America, the composer, violinist and musicologist Howard Boatwright of Syracuse University, learned of the long musical tradition of the house. Together with his wife, the singer Helen Boatwright, he established the summer courses of the so-called «École Hindemith» there beginning in 1969, later transformed into the «Journées Paul Hindemith».
In 1976 the Hindemith Foundation acquired the Chalet Lacroix, which was inaugurated as the «Hindemith Music Centre in Blonay» in 1978 following extensive renovation. In 1988 the capacity of the Music Centre was expanded through the new construction of a Pavilion on the property, and in 2000 through the restoration of the former garden hut as «Maison Marius Décombaz».
The leadership of the Hindemith Music Centre in Blonay was in the hands of Ann-Charlotte van Cleef from 1980 until 2000. Samuel Dähler was director of the music centre from 2000 to 2003 and Marcel Lachat from 2004 to 2023. Véronique Erard has been director of the Hindemith Music Centre since 1 January 2024.
Inauguration
Invitation to the official inauguration of the building on 1 July 1978 during the 10th season of the «Journées Paul Hindemith»
