Michel Tabachnik

Michel Tabachnik (born 10 November 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.

Tabachnik has an interest in esotericism and spirituality, and beginning in the 1970s he was a member of the Golden Way Foundation and its successor group the Order of the Solar Temple (OTS), run by Joseph Di Mambro. In 1994, the Solar Temple committed mass suicide, and following another mass suicide the next year, Tabachnik was investigated and tried twice for responsibility in the OTS deaths. Tabachnik was acquitted on all counts in both trials, and returned to conducting.

Early life Tabachnik was born in Geneva, Switzerland on 10 November 1942. He got his degree in music theory.

Early career In June 1977, having an interest in esotericism, Tabachnik met Joseph Di Mambro, one of the two future leaders of the Order of the Solar Temple, a group notorious for mass suicides and murders in the 1990s. He had been introduced with his wife Christiane Meylan to , a precursor group, by Nicole Koymans; he joined the next year. He had two children with Meylan. In 1981, he became the president of the Golden Way Foundation that Di Mambro created.

Within the framework of the OTS, Tabachnik wrote the Archées, esoteric texts that circulated within the OTS. In 1981, he switched wives with Christian Pechot, also a member of the OTS, with Pechot marrying to Meylan and Tabachnik marrying Pechot's wife Sabine Reuter, who was a student of Di Mambro. He and Sabine moved to Toronto in 1984, as he found conductor work there, which Di Mambro used as a reason to move the group to Canada. Within the group, his son David was considered one of the "cosmic children", who would form an elite population following the end of the world.

He was Artistic Director of l'Orchestre des Jeunes du Québec (1985–1989) and, over a twelve-year period, l' which he founded in 1984.

Legal cases

The Solar Temple committed mass suicide and murder in 1994, killing 53 people. Among the dead were Meylan and Pechot, and Pechot and Meylan's son. Prior to the mass suicide Tabachnik had announced the end of the OTS. He largely escaped negative attention following the first deaths, but following the second mass suicide in December 1995, his name made headline news. His stated defense at the time was that he had little to do with the OTS, which backfired when more evidence came out and this was found to be untrue.

Despite a lack of evidence implicating him in any crime, Tabachnik was investigated. This resulted in two trials in 2001 and 2006. On 25 June 2001, the court acquitted Tabachnik, on the basis that there had been no conclusive proof found of any involvement, and his writings accused of influencing the members into death were deemed unlikely to have influenced them. The appeals court upheld the lower court's ruling, and he was acquitted a second time in December 2006.

Later career As a result of the investigation related to the OTS, Tabachnik had lost most of his work as a conductor and had to pause his career. Following his acquittal, Tabachnik returned to being a conductor.

Since September 2005, Tabachnik is chief-conductor of the Noord Nederlands Orkest (NNO). From 2008 until 2015, Tabachnik was the music director and chief-conductor of the Brussels Philharmonic.

Speaking on his involvement with the OTS, Tabachnik appeared in two 2022 documentary series on the case, and . Temple Solaire: l'enquête impossible also featured journalists Gilles Bouleau and Arnaud Bédat, both who had accused of him of being involved in the deaths. During an interview for the promotion of the series, Bédat stated he had changed his mind and no longer believed that Tabachnik had planned the deaths, and that him being away in concert had perhaps stopped him from being killed as well.

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