A note from the director

Welcome to the website of the “Haute école de musique Genève – Neuchâtel” (HEM) – one of the most comprehensive, dynamic music schools in Europe!

With a long-established tradition, a resolutely forward-looking approach and a combination of excellence and openness to society, local roots and international relations, the HEM welcomes students from all over the world, offering them high-quality teaching provided by professional artists, and training them for the full range of music professions. Although the school’s main focus is on Western classical music, its contact with other cultures provides opportunities for reflection on how music is produced and conveyed in a globalised society, as well as for intercultural artistic activities.

The HEM’s courses are fully integrated into the European higher education area. They are provided by six departments: Keyboard Instruments, Orchestral Instruments, Vocal, Early Music, Music and Movement, and Composition and Theory. Dialogue with our partners and users is accompanied by an ongoing assessment of the relevance of our goals and structures. The students’ skills and know-how are put to the test in public performances held almost daily both on and off campus. Finally, our lifelong training facilities allow professionals to keep in touch with what is a rapidly changing sociocultural environment.

Working in close partnership with such leading regional institutions as the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Grand Théâtre de Genève and the University of Geneva, as well as sister institutions in Switzerland and elsewhere, the HEM is an artistic community whose members share a wish to produce music of the highest standard, and whose watchword is creativity – an unflagging curiosity that questions what exists in order to transform it and give it new meaning.

Come and join us!

Philippe Dinkel
Director