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Keeping your community covered. We're committed to producing high-quality, fact-based news and information that gives you the facts in this community we call home. If our work has helped you stay informed, take action, or feel more connected to Windham County – please give now to help us reach our goal of raising $150,000 by December 31st.
Blanche Moyse, one of Vermont's most influential musicians and the last surviving founder of the Marlboro Music Festival, died Feb. 10 at her home in West Brattleboro. She was 101.
Moyse likely did more to create Vermont's current vibrant music community than any other individual. She co-founded three of the state's most respected musical institutions - the famed Marlboro Music School and Festival, the Brattleboro Music Center, and the New England Bach Festival, which she led until her retirement in 2004 at age 95.
Blanche Honegger, a distant cousin to the composer Arthur Honegger, was born on Sept. 23, 1909, in Geneva, Switzerland, the youngest of a family of music-lovers, her father a prominent businessman. She began violin studies at age 5 with an uncle, but was discovered by the great German violinist Adolf Busch at the age of 12. Busch took over the prodigy's musical education and was to remain her mentor until he died in 1952.
At 16, Moyse earned her first prize, the equivalent of a doctorate, at the Geneva Conservatory, and began concertizing. She also studied chamber music with the harpsichordist Wanda Landowska, and was the first student of the young Spanish guitar virtuoso Andres Segovia. Returning to violin, she made her debut with L'Orchestre de la Suisse Romande under Ernest Ansermet, playing the Beethoven Concerto at age 19.
