Michel Tabachnik | |
---|---|
Born | Geneva, Switzerland | 10 November 1942
Occupation(s) | Conductor, composer, writer |
Spouse | Christine Meylan (div. 1981)Sabine Reuter (m. 1981) |
Children | 2 |
Website | 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 composing.
Tabachnik was born in Geneva, Switzerland on 10 November 1942. [1] [2] His father was a trombonist. In 1976, the French Minister of Culture Michel Guy gave him creative control over the direction of two new orchestras. [2] He got his degree in music theory. [2]
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. [3]
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. [4] He had been introduced with his wife Christiane Meylan to La Pyramide, a precursor group, by Nicole Koymans; he joined the next year. [5] He had two children with Meylan. [6] In 1981, he became the president of the Golden Way Foundation that Di Mambro created. [4]
Within the framework of the OTS, Tabachnik wrote the Archées, esoteric texts that circulated within the OTS. [7] [8] 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. [4] [9] 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. [10] 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. [11]
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. [12] 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). [12]
The Solar Temple committed mass suicide and murder in 1994, killing 53 people. [13] Among the dead were Meylan and Pechot, and Pechot and Meylan's son. [4] [6] Prior to the mass suicide Tabachnik had announced the end of the OTS. [14] He largely escaped negative attention following the first massacres, 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. [15]
Despite a lack of evidence implicating him in any crime, there was a need by the French justice system to put someone on trial and Tabachnik was investigated. [16] [15] 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. [17] The appeals court upheld the lower court's ruling, and he was acquitted a second time in December 2006. [17]
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. [17] Following his acquittal, Tabachnik returned to being a conductor. [18]
Since September 2005, Tabachnik is chief-conductor of the Noord Nederlands Orkest (NNO). [19] From 2008 until 2015, Tabachnik was the music director and chief-conductor of the Brussels Philharmonic. [20] [21] [22] [23]
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 . [24] [25] Temple Solaire: l'enquête impossible also featured journalists Gilles Bouleau and Arnaud Bédat, both who had accused of him of being involved in the massacre. [26] [27] 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. [28]
The Order of the Solar Temple, or simply the Solar Temple, was a new religious movement and secret society, often described as a cult, notorious for the mass deaths of many of its members in several mass murders and suicides throughout the 1990s. The OTS was a neo-Templar order, claiming to be a continuation of the Knights Templar, and incorporated an eclectic range of beliefs with aspects of Rosicrucianism, Theosophy, and New Age ideas. It was led by Joseph Di Mambro, with Luc Jouret as a spokesman and second in command. It was founded in 1984, in Geneva, Switzerland.
Luc Georges Marc Jean Jouret was a Belgian religious leader, doctor and homeopath. Jouret founded the Order of the Solar Temple (OTS) with Joseph Di Mambro in 1984. He committed suicide in the Swiss village of Salvan on 5 October 1994 as part of a mass murder–suicide. While Di Mambro was the true leader of the group, Jouret was its outward image and primary recruiter.
Jean-Marie Abgrall is a French psychiatrist, criminologist, specialist in forensic medicine, cult consultant, graduate in criminal law and anti-cultist. He has been an expert witness and has been consulted in the investigations of cults. Abgrall is known as a proponent of brainwashing theories.
Joseph Léonce Di Mambro was a French religious leader who founded and led the Order of the Solar Temple with Luc Jouret. Di Mambro had been associated with a variety of esoteric groups before founding OTS. He was previously convicted of several counts of fraud, including impersonation of a psychiatrist, leading him to flee France in the 1970s. He founded the Solar Temple with Jouret in 1984. He committed suicide in the Swiss village of Salvan on 5 October 1994 as part of a mass murder–suicide.
Gilles Bouleau is a French journalist. As a journalist and reporter on TF1 and LCI for several years, he spent several years in other countries as a correspondent in London and Washington. Head of special operations since 2011, he became the news anchor of the Journal de 20 heures on TF1 since June 2012, succeeding Laurence Ferrari.
Marie Édith Jeanne Vuarnet was a French alpine skier. She competed in the women's downhill at the 1956 Winter Olympics, and was a three time champion in the French downhill competition. She was a member of the Order of the Solar Temple and died in a mass murder-suicide on 16 December 1995, alongside other members including her youngest son, Patrick.
On the morning of 16 December 1995, 16 members of the Order of the Solar Temple died in a mass murder-suicide in a clearing in the Vercors, near the village of Saint-Pierre-de-Chérennes in Isère, France. Two members of the group, Jean-Pierre Lardanchet and André Friedli, shot and killed 14 other members, including three children, before setting the bodies on fire and killing themselves. This was done in order to facilitate a spiritual voyage to the star Sirius, a "transit", as it had been in previous mass suicides.
Arnaud Bédat was a Swiss journalist and author. He worked for L'Illustré. His works often focused on high profile cases, including the Swissair Flight 111 and the Order of the Solar Temple. Other books of his covered Pope Francis and the disappearance of French TV host Philippe de Dieuleveult. He was a regular commentator on French television, particularly Faites entrer l'accusé, C dans l'air, Zone d'ombre, and 50 minutes Inside.
Jacques Breyer was a French esotericist, alchemist and writer. He published and wrote various books on esoteric elements, including ones with apocalyptic teachings. He launched the "Arginy Renaissance", a rebirth of an independent wing of neo-Templar groups – groups that claimed to be revivals of the Knights Templar — in France in the 1950s. He was influential on the development of many of these organizations, including the Order of the Solar Temple.
Temple Solaire: l'enquête impossible, released in English as Sirius: An Apocalyptic Order, is a 2022 French documentary miniseries, covering the Order of the Solar Temple affair. It was directed by Raphaël Rouyer and Nicolas Brénéol. The Solar Temple was a religious group that committed mass murder-suicide in several incidents in the 1990s, killing 74 people in France, Switzerland and Canada. It focuses in particular on the three journalists Gilles Bouleau, Arnaud Bédat and Bernard Nicolas, who investigated the case.
Les Mythes du Temple Solaire is a book by religious historian Jean-François Mayer. It was published in 1996 by Georg éditeur. The book covers the Order of the Solar Temple a group notorious for the deaths of many of its members through both murder and suicide in several incidents throughout the 1990s. Mayer had access to many of the OTS's records while writing the book, and had been personally consulted in the police investigation.
La Fraternité is a Swiss documentary television miniseries about the Order of the Solar Temple (OTS), notorious for numerous mass murder suicides in the 1990s. It was directed by Pierre Morath and Éric Lemasson, and premiered in February 2023 on RTS. The documentary features archival materials on the group that were previously unreleased, including videos that had been produced by the OTS itself. It also features interviews with former members, investigators, and researchers into the group.
Les Chevaliers de la mort: Enquête et révélations sur l'Ordre du Temple Solaire is a book by journalists Arnaud Bédat, Gilles Bouleau and Bernard Nicolas, covering the Order of the Solar Temple, notorious for the mass murder-suicides committed by the group in the 1990s. It was co-published in December 1996 by L'Illustré and TF1 Éditions, and published in Canada by Libre Expression the next month.
Les Mystères sanglants de l'OTS is a 2006 television documentary directed by Yves Boisset discussing the Order of the Solar Temple, a religious group notorious for the mass deaths of its many members in several mass murder-suicides throughout the 1990s. It first aired on the Infrarouge block on France 2 on 2 February 2006. The documentary features interviews with several former members and journalists who question the official narrative.
The Renewed Order of the Temple, abbreviated as ORT, sometimes called the Renovated Order of the Temple, was a neo-Templar revivalist order. The ORT was established in 1970 by Raymond Bernard at the suggestion of Julien Origas, both members of the Rosicrucian organization Ancient Mystical Order Rosae Crucis, which it initially had a relation to. It was also part of the Arginy movement of neo-Templar organizations, influenced by Jacques Breyer.
Vie et Mort de l'Ordre du Temple Solaire is a 1994 book about the Order of the Solar Temple, written by Carl-A. Keller and Raphaël Aubert. The Solar Temple was a notorious group active in Switzerland in the 1990s, known for the mass suicides of several of its members throughout the 1990s. The book was published in December 1994 by Éditions de l'Aire, just two months after the first deaths. It was the first book about the group.
Following the Order of the Solar Temple affair – a case that gained international notoriety when members of the group, a then-obscure neo-Templar group, orchestrated several mass suicides and mass murders in the 1990s – there have been several books and studies published about the events and organization. The case became a media sensation, with many conspiracy theories promoted by the media. As described by Susan J. Palmer, "false or unverifiable trails have been laid: secondhand testimonies are traded by journalists, ghost-written apostate memoirs are in progress and conspiracy theories abound."
On 22 March 1997, five members of the Order of the Solar Temple (OTS) committed mass suicide in Saint-Casimir, Quebec, setting their house on fire with them inside. Among the dead were two couples: Didier and Chantal Quèze and Bruno Klaus and Pauline Riou, as well as Chantal's mother Suzanne Druau. The three children of the Quèzes had initially been included in the suicide plan, but the first attempt to initiate the suicide failed. After the failure of the first attempt, they confronted their parents, and convinced them that they wanted to live and were let go. Following two more unsuccessful attempts to orchestrate the suicide, the final attempt, with help from the children, was successful.
From 30 September to 5 October 1994, 53 members or former members of the Order of the Solar Temple died in a series of mass murders and suicides in Morin-Heights, Quebec, Canada, and in Cheiry and Salvan in Switzerland. The Solar Temple, or OTS, was founded in 1984, active in several Francophone countries. The group was led by Joseph Di Mambro with Luc Jouret as a second in command; the group had a theological doctrine that by committing suicide, one would not die, but "transit"; they conceptualized the transit as a ritual involving magic fire, where they would undergo a spiritual voyage to the star Sirius, where they would continue their lives.
In 2001 Swiss composer and orchestral conductor Michel Tabachnik was tried in the Grenoble criminal court, over his involvement in the Order of the Solar Temple (OTS) religious movement. The Solar Temple was an esoteric and eclectic new religious movement and secret society, often described as a cult, that had been involved in several high profile mass-murder suicides in the 1990s. Tabachnik was accused of brainwashing the followers into the suicides and having known about the plans beforehand. Tabachnik was the only person tried in the aftermath of the Solar Temple deaths; he was found not guilty in the 2001 trial and in the 2006 appeal trial.