Michel Tabachnik | |
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Background information | |
Born | Geneva, Switzerland | 10 November 1942
Occupation(s) | Conductor, composer, writer |
Website | 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.
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 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. [2] 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). [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]
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. [5] [6] Within the framework of the OTS, Tabachnik wrote the Archées, esoteric texts that circulated within the OTS. [6] [7] 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. [8] [9] [10] 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. [8] [11] [10] 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. [12]
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, [13] [14] indirectly declaring that Tabachnik was the mastermind behind the Vercors massacre. [14] Later, Swiss journalist Arnaud Bédat acquired photos claimed to directly implicate Tabachnik in the OTS's actions. [15] [16] [17] This information was picked up by the media, leading Tabachnik to give a public denial. [18] 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. [8] [11] [10] Tabachnik later sued Bouleau, unsuccessfully, for defamation. [15] [19]
Tabachnik was investigated following the incident; Fontaine placed him under examination on 12 June 1996 for conspiracy. [20] Prior Swiss investigations had not established any connection between Tabachnik and the 1994 deaths; his own wife died in the earlier massacre. [21] [5] 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. [22] Fontaine placed him under examination on 12 June 1996 for conspiracy. [20] In his defense, Tabachnik published the book Bouc émissaire: Dans le piège du Temple Solaire, with a preface by Pierre Boulez. [23] Investigating judge Luc Fontaine suspected that Tabachnik had known that the massacres were being prepared. [20] Additionally, the writings that he had prepared for the group were alleged to have brought the members into a "homicidal dynamic". [24] [25] [26] 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. [20] [21] [27]
He was tried in 2001 for conspiracy to commit murder and participation in a criminal association. [8] [13] 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. [28] [29] [27] If found guilty, he faced up to 10 years in prison. [13] On the eighth day, Tabachnik was interviewed and told of having been manipulated and fooled by Di Mambro. [30] On the tenth day, the prosecutor demanded 5 years' imprisonment for Tabachnik's alleged role in the conditioning of the Temple's followers. [25] [31] The prosecutors said that Tabachnik's participation in the meetings announcing the end of the OTS indicated wrongdoing. [8] [32] [13] 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. [8] Szpiner argued that by the time the records showed the massacre was being planned, Tabachnik was no longer participating in the OTS. [27]
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. [8] [7] The prosecution said they had been used to "condition" and brainwash the members of the OTS into their beliefs and their deaths. [13] [21] 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. [8] [7] During the trial, no one could figure out what the texts, called "indecipherable", were supposed to mean, including Abgrall. [28] [8] They incorporated many traditions and systems of thought, including Kabbalah, astrophysics, and alchemy. [33] 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. [8]
Tabachnik said the writings had been symbolic, and that he had never imagined that anything in them could be used to justify death. [8] Szpiner said the excerpts presented by the prosecution were "snippets" that had been "cut and pasted" out of context. [28] 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. [8] 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. [26] [13]
The public prosecutor, still accusing him of having, through his writings, pushed followers into a mass suicide, appealed the criminal court's decision. [33] [6] Tabachnik was tried again in a second trial beginning 24 October 2006. [34] [26] 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. [25] 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. [10] 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. [35] [25] 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. [10]
The appeals court upheld the lower court's ruling, and he was acquitted a second time in December 2006. [35] [20] [26] The judgment stated that there was no proof that he had knowingly participated in the organization of the deaths. [25] 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". [25] Tabachnik continues to deny any involvement in the planning of the massacres. [20] [7]
Since September 2005, Tabachnik is chief-conductor of the Noord Nederlands Orkest (NNO). [36] From 2008 until 2015, Tabachnik was the music director and chief-conductor of the Brussels Philharmonic. [37] [38] [39] [40]
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. [41] [42] Temple Solaire: l'enquête impossible also featured Bouleau and Bédat, both who had accused of him of being involved in the massacre. [43] [44] His appearance in the documentary took many weeks of convincing by the production team. [45] 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". [46] 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. [46]
The Order of the Solar Temple, or simply the Solar Temple, was a religious group, 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 movement, claiming to be a continuation of the Knights Templar, and incorporated a mix 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.
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.
Jean-François Mayer is a Swiss religious historian, author, and translator. He is also Director of the Religioscope Institute, which he founded. He received his masters degree, and then his doctorate, from the Jean Moulin University Lyon 3 in 1979 and 1984. His writing focuses on religion, with a particular focus on new religious movements and cults, including the Unification Church, the Church of Scientology and the Pilgrims of Arès.
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.
Jacques Breyer was a French esotericist and writer. He launched the "Arginy Renaissance", a rebirth of Neo-Templar groups, in France in the 1950s. He published and wrote various books on esoteric elements, including ones with apocalyptic teachings.
Temple Solaire: l'enquête impossible is a 2022 French documentary miniseries, covering the Order of the Solar Temple case, as well as the journalistic investigation into it. It features several former members of the group and the families of the victims, as well as several journalists who investigated the case. The series first aired on TMC in June 2022, and received positive reviews.
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.
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.
Timeless Voyage: Earth Sky Connection is a comic book, illustrated by Sergio Macedo and written by Appel Guery. It was published in 1982 by Editions Glénat. An English translation was published in 1987 by Transtar Pacific. The book's author, Appel Guery, was the leader of the UFO religion Siderella. Siderella was deemed a cult by a French government report in 1995. The comic carries the beliefs of the movement. It follows a group of UFO believers, who are picked up before a great cataclysm by a flying saucer.
Renaud Marhic is a French writer and journalist. He has written non-fiction books on topics including cults, the far-right, pseudoscience, terrorism, and religious fundamentalism. Marhic is also the writer of several crime novels, and the children's book series Les Lutins Urbains.
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