The Brattleboro Music Center was established in 1952 by violinist Blanche Honegger Moyse.

At the invitation of fellow émigrés Rudolf Serkin and Adolf Busch, Blanche came to Southern Vermont to help establish a music department at Marlboro College and, later, to co-found the world-renowned Marlboro Music Festival.

Blanche took up year-round residency in Brattleboro and was astonished to find a town where opportunities for participation and instruction in music-making were all but invisible.  In establishing the Brattleboro Music Center she sought to create an institution that would “promote the love and understanding of good music through performance and education and make it a vital part of the community.”

Over the ensuing decades the BMC became a nexus of education, participation and performance activities that involves thousands of local residents. These activities include a community chorus, a chamber music series, a community orchestra, concerts and educational programs in public schools, annual festivals and a thriving community music school. Today, under the artistic advisement of Jaime Laredo and Sharon Robinson, the BMC consists of numerous performance, participation, and education programs.


Mme. Moyse, born in Geneva, Switzerland in 1909, began violin studies at the age of eight and shortly thereafter became a student of the great German violinist Adolf Busch. At the age of 16 she earned first prize in violin at the Geneva Conservatory and made her debut with L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under Fritz Busch, performing the Beethoven Violin Concerto to critical acclaim. Moyse moved to Paris where she continued her distinguished musical education with such musical giants as violinist-composer Georges Enesco, harpsichordist Wanda Landowska, guitarist Andres Segovia as well as Adolf Busch. In addition she served on the faculty of Neuchatel Conservatory of Music in her native country.

Prior to World War II, the young violinist married concert pianist Louis Moyse. Shortly thereafter the Moyse Trio, consisting of Marcel, the pre-eminent flutist of the era, Louis and Blanche Moyse, was formed. Acclaimed as one of the most “perfect” ensembles of the day, the trio’s many awards included the International Grand Prix du Disque, the ultimate recording prize. At the end of World War II, the Moyse Trio left a devastated France for a promised new music school in South America, but the school failed to materialize.

The Moyses moved to Vermont in 1949, at the invitation of Adolf and Hermann Busch and Rudolf Serkin, and with them founded the Marlboro Music Festival. At the same time, Mme. Moyse established the music department of the fledgling Marlboro College, and served as its chairman for the next 25 years. In these capacities she has been colleague, teacher, coach and friend of many of the premier musicians of our day.??

In response to the musical wasteland that typified the long winters of southern Vermont in those years, Blanche Moyse established the Brattleboro Music Center in 1951. Her vision, “to promote the love and understanding of good music and to make it a vital part of the community,” was realized with the establishment of a diverse combination of performance and education programs. Today The Brattleboro Music Center’s programs include the Blanche Moyse Chorale, a music school with a faculty of 30 and over 300 students of all ages, levels and abilities, a chamber music series, the Community Chorus, the Windham Orchestra and Music & Arts in the Schools.

Forced by a bow-arm ailment to retire as a violinist (her last performance at the Marlboro Music Festival was in 1966), Mme. Moyse proceeded to dedicate the majority of her time to the study and performance of the choral works of Johann Sebastian Bach. In 1969 the New England Bach Festival was born.??She made her Carnegie Hall debut at age 78, conducting the Blanche Moyse Chorale and the Orchestra of St. Luke’s in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio.

Despite her national and international acclaim, Mme. Moyse remains rooted to her community and committed to the cultural life and musical growth of its professional and amateur musicians through the many programs of the Brattleboro Music Center.