- Source: Michel Tabachnik
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 life
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.
Early career
He was Artistic Director of l'Orchestre des Jeunes du Québec (1985–1989) and, over a twelve-year period, l'Orchestre des jeunes de la Méditerranée which he founded in 1984. He has held the position of Chief Conductor of the Gulbenkian Orchestra in Lisbon, the Orchestre national de Lorraine, the Ensemble InterContemporain in Paris and the Northern Netherlands Orchestra (Groningen).
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.
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. In 1995, Tabachnik was named Artist of the Year by the Italian "Centro Internazionale di Arte e Cultura" in Rome.
Solar Temple
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. Within the framework of the OTS, Tabachnik wrote the Archées, esoteric texts that circulated within the OTS. A few weeks prior to the 1994 mass suicide, which included the group's leaders, he had announced the end of the OTS in two meetings in Avignon at Di Mambro's request, what were the last meetings, where the end of the Order and its replacement by an organization called ARC (Alliance Rose Croix) was announced. It was later said that Tabachnik had indeed taken part in these conferences, but without knowing the outcome of the massacres, and that it had been a set-up by Di Mambro. At the time of the massacres, he was in concert in Denmark. Due to documents found related to the group, the police were able to understand the workings of the community and recognize some of its members, including Tabachnik.
On 23 December 1995, during the journal de 13 heures program on the French channel TF1, journalist Gilles Bouleau claimed that the group had survived and united behind Tabachnik, indirectly declaring that Tabachnik was the mastermind behind the Vercors massacre. Later, Swiss journalist Arnaud Bédat acquired photos claimed to directly implicate Tabachnik in the OTS's actions. This information was picked up by the media, leading Tabachnik to give a public denial. It was revealed that in September 1994, Tabachnik gave two lectures in Avignon at Di Mambro's request, in which the end of the OTS was announced. It was later said that Tabachnik had indeed taken part in these conferences, but without knowing the outcome of the massacres, and that it had been a set-up by Di Mambro. Tabachnik later sued Bouleau, unsuccessfully, for defamation.
Tabachnik was investigated following the incident; Fontaine placed him under examination on 12 June 1996 for conspiracy. Prior Swiss investigations had not established any connection between Tabachnik and the 1994 deaths; his own wife died in the earlier massacre. At the time of the investigation, due to the death of the two leaders in Salvan in 1994, Tabachnik was the only defendant in the case. Fontaine considered that Tabachnik, through his writings and his conferences, could have incited followers to commit suicide. He was therefore charged with participation in a criminal conspiracy to commit a crime. Fontaine placed him under examination on 12 June 1996 for conspiracy. In his defense, Tabachnik published the book Bouc émissaire: Dans le piège du Temple Solaire, with a preface by Pierre Boulez. Investigating judge Luc Fontaine suspected that Tabachnik had known that the massacres were being prepared. Additionally, the writings that he had prepared for the group were alleged to have brought the members into a "homicidal dynamic". Tabachnik denied that he had any prior knowledge of the massacres, claiming he had only occasionally spoken at OTS conferences. He admitted to having been a member of the group, though he had initially denied it.
= Trials
=He was tried in 2001 for conspiracy to commit murder and participation in a criminal association. On 13 April 2001, at the Grenoble Museum-Library, which had been transformed for the occasion, the trial began. Tabachnik was defended by Francis Szpiner. If found guilty, he faced up to 10 years in prison. On the eighth day, Tabachnik was interviewed and told of having been manipulated and fooled by Di Mambro. On the tenth day, the prosecutor demanded 5 years' imprisonment for Tabachnik's alleged role in the conditioning of the Temple's followers. The prosecutors said that Tabachnik's participation in the meetings announcing the end of the OTS indicated wrongdoing. The prosecution painted him as one of the higher ups of the organization; the psychiatrist Jean-Marie Abgrall, called as an expert for the trial, said that Tabachnik's influence within the group was unclear. Szpiner argued that by the time the records showed the massacre was being planned, Tabachnik was no longer participating in the OTS.
During the trial Tabachnik was questioned for two hours about his writings prepared for the OTS, Les Archées. These writings included 21 esoteric texts written between 1985 and 1992, which were distributed among the higher up members of the OTS. The prosecution said they had been used to "condition" and brainwash the members of the OTS into their beliefs and their deaths. When questioned, he declared that they were merely "amateur" writings, a set of notes that had been read to Di Mambro that he had liked and decided to make high-level teachings of the group. During the trial, no one could figure out what the texts, called "indecipherable", were supposed to mean, including Abgrall. They incorporated many traditions and systems of thought, including Kabbalah, astrophysics, and alchemy. However, the court claimed that they contained themes that were used to justify the massacre, speaking of a "transition" and "secret masters" on Sirius. Tabachnik told the court that he had been in the shadow of Di Mambro and had no responsibility for what happened.
Tabachnik said the writings had been symbolic, and that he had never imagined that anything in them could be used to justify death. Szpiner said the excerpts presented by the prosecution were "snippets" that had been "cut and pasted" out of context. Tabachnik had also been paid 192,135 Swiss francs from a company in Panama as payment for these writings; when asked by the judge if this had been fraud, he said that this money was for production costs for the writings and that he had already been cleared by the Swiss courts on this count. On 25 June 2001, the court acquitted Tabachnik, on the basis that there had been no significant or conclusive proof uncovered that Tabachnik had orchestrated the killings, and his writings accused of influencing the members into death were deemed unlikely to have influenced the members.
The public prosecutor, still accusing him of having, through his writings, pushed followers into a mass suicide, appealed the criminal court's decision. Tabachnik was tried again in a second trial beginning 24 October 2006. The appeal of the prosecutor against the first acquittal did not ask for his conviction or acquittal, and did not argue for him being guilty or innocent. The prosecutor also stated that he did not appear to be an important member of the group and they had no proof to the contrary. Tabachnik's lawyer argued his works were "esoteric ramblings" that could not have inspired the group's violence; he said that to punish him for "wild" ideas would be punishing him for the crime of having an opinion. The attorney general said his writings were so obscure that they could not have been made as a call to suicide; if they had been used as such it was unintentional.
The appeals court upheld the lower court's ruling, and he was acquitted a second time in December 2006. The judgment stated that there was no proof that he had knowingly participated in the organization of the deaths. Following his acquittal, Tabachnik stated in a press release that: "My innocence has finally been recognized. I am emerging from eleven years of nightmare", and declared the whole series of trials "eleven years of slander, humiliation and dishonor". Tabachnik continues to deny any involvement in the planning of the massacres.
Later career
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, Temple Solaire: l'enquête impossible and La Fraternité. It took two years to convince Tabachnik to be interviewed for La Fraternité; director Pierre Morath described him as "traumatized" by the whole affair and that it was "almost a miracle" he had agreed, with a fear that people would distort his words as had happened before. Temple Solaire: l'enquête impossible also featured Bouleau and Bédat, both who had accused of him of being involved in the massacre. His appearance in the documentary took many weeks of convincing by the production team. Bédat described their meeting, noting that Tabachnik "agreed to an interview, yelled at me for two hours and then it was over. We became friends". 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
Bouc émissaire: Dans le piège du Temple Solaire
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
References
Sources
Clusel, Shannon; Palmer, Susan J. (2020). "The Solar Temple in Quebec and the Saint-Casimir "Transit"". In Palmer, Susan J.; Geoffroy, Martin; Gareau, Paul L. (eds.). The Mystical Geography of Quebec: Catholic Schisms and New Religious Movements. Palgrave Studies in New Religions and Alternative Spiritualities. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-3-030-33061-3.
Mayer, Jean-François (2014). "The Order of the Solar Temple: From Apocalypse to Court". In Richardson, James T.; Bellanger, François (eds.). Legal Cases, New Religious Movements, and Minority Faiths. Farnham; Burlington: Ashgate. ISBN 978-1-4724-2874-5.
Morath, Pierre; Lemasson, Eric (8 February 2023). La Fraternité. Episode 2 (in Swiss French). Radio Télévision Suisse.{{cite episode}}: CS1 maint: date and year (link)
Morath, Pierre; Lemasson, Eric (15 February 2023). La Fraternité. Episode 3 (in Swiss French). Radio Télévision Suisse.
Morath, Pierre; Lemasson, Eric (15 February 2023). La Fraternité. Episode 4 (in Swiss French). Radio Télévision Suisse.
External links
Official website
Music & Books
Kata Kunci Pencarian:
- Michel Tabachnik
- 1995 Vercors massacre
- Order of the Solar Temple
- Tabachnik
- Michel (name)
- Temple Solaire: l'enquête impossible
- 1994 Solar Temple massacres
- Brussels Philharmonic
- Noord Nederlands Orkest
- Nemanja Radulović
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