Michel Tabachnik (born November 10, 1942) is a Swiss conductor and composer with an international career. A promoter of contemporary music, he has premiered a dozen works by Iannis Xenakis, among others. He is also the author of essays on music and novels. In 1995, he was implicated in the case regarding the mass murder-suicides of the Order of the Solar Temple, from which he was acquitted by the courts.
Early years
Tabachnik was born in Geneva, where he studied piano, composition and conducting. As a young conductor he was a protégé of Igor Markevitch, Herbert von Karajan and Pierre Boulez, acting as the latter's assistant for four years, mainly with the BBC Symphony Orchestra, London. This led him to become closely involved with conducting and to perform many world premieres, particularly those of Iannis Xenakis.[1]
He is also a pedagogue. In addition to leading Master Classes in Amsterdam (NOS), Lisbon (the Gulbenkian Foundation), Paris Conservatoire, Stockholm Conservatory, and others, he has also held the position of Professor of Conducting at both the Faculty of Music, University of Toronto (1984–1991), and the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen (1993–2001).[2]
In addition to his work as a conductor, Tabachnik is also a composer. He has been honored with many commissions including "La Légende de Haïsha" for the anniversary of the Bicentenary of the French Revolution, "Le Cri de Mohim" for the 700th Year of Switzerland, and "Le Pacte des Onze" for I.R.C.A.M. Paris.[3]
Tabachnik records for Erato and Lyrinx, with whom he has been associated since 1991. His discography includes Beethoven, Wagner, Honegger and Iannis Xenakis. His recording of the Schumann Piano Concerto (with Catherine Collard as soloist) was voted Best Performance of the work by the international jury at the Radio Suisse Romande.[2] In 1995, Tabachnik was named Artist of the Year by the Italian "Centro Internazionale di Arte e Cultura" in Rome.[4]
Since September 2005, Tabachnik is chief-conductor of the Noord Nederlands Orkest (NNO).[5] From 2008 until 2015, Tabachnik was the music director and chief-conductor of the Brussels Philharmonic.[6][7][8][9]
Passionate about philosophy, esotericism and spirituality,[1] Michel Tabachnik met in 1977 Joseph Di Mambro, one of the two future leaders of the Order of the Solar Temple (OTS). In 1981, he became the president of the Golden Way Foundation that Di Mambro had created three years earlier in Geneva.[10] Within the framework of the OTS, Tabachnik wrote the Archées, esoteric texts that circulated within the OTS.[11][12] Prior to the 1994 mass suicide, which included the group's leaders, he had announced the end of the OTS.[13]
Between 1994 and 2006, following the mass suicides that occurred within the OTS, he was prosecuted in France for "participation in an association of criminals" on the basis of his writings. On June 25, 2001, he was acquitted by the Grenoble criminal court. The public prosecutor's office having appealed, he was acquitted a second time in December 2006.[14] The public prosecutor had considered that Tabachnik was not an important member of the OTS and that there was no proof that he had knowingly participated in the crimes the OTS committed, and that his writings were "esoteric gibberish".[14][15] The Swiss justice system dismissed the cases of the October 1994 tragedies in Salvan and Cheiry, Switzerland.[16][15]
Publications
Il était une fois un enfant, novel, publisher de l'Aire, 1999.
De la Musique avant toute chose, essay, préface by Régis Debray, Essai, éd. Buchet/Chastel, 2008.
L’Homme sauvage, novel, publisher Ring, 2013.
Ma Rhapsodie, essay, publisher Buchet/Chastel, 2016.
Le Libraire de Saint-Sulpice, novel, publisher Otago 2017.
L’Enlèvement au Sinaï, novel, publisher Otago, 2019.
Demain au Marmara Taskim, novel, publisher L'Harmattan, 2022.
La Pierre de Siloé, novel, publisher L'Harmattan, 2022.
Compositions
Supernovae, 1967
Frise, 1968
Fresque, 1969
Invention à 16 voix, 1972
Mondes, 1972
Sillages, 1972
D'autres Sillages, 1972
Movimenti, 1973
Éclipses, 1974
Argile, 1974
Trois Impressions, 1975
Les Perséïdes, 1981
Cosmogonie, 1981
l'Arch, 1982
7 Rituels Atlantes, 1984
Pacte des onze (Évangile selon Thomas), 1985
Élévation, 1990
Prélude à la Légende, 1989
Le Cri de Mohim, 1991
Évocation, 1994
La Légende de Haïsha, 1989
Concerto pour piano et orchestre de chambre, 2003
Nord pour orchestre, 2006
Diptyque-écho, Concerto pour violon et orchestre, 2008
Genèse, pour violon solo et orchestre, 2010
Lumières fossiles, pour orchestre, 2011
Benjamin, dernière nuit, opéra, 2012
Le livre de Job, 2013
Benjamin, dernière nuit, drame lyrique en quatorze scènes, 2016
"Sumer", concerto pour violoncelle et orchestre, 2019
"Genèse II", concerto pour violon et orchestre, 2021