From teacher to national arts treasure, the multi-faceted singer-songwriter, composer, and actor Michel Bühler was one of the leading lights of French-speaking Swiss chanson from his beginnings in 1969 until his death in 2022. Born on 30 April 1945 in Bern, Switzerland, Michel Bühler grew up in the municipality of Sainte-Croix and attended school in Lausanne where he was granted his teaching license in 1965. A few years later he began exploring the world of songwriting and released his first album Helvétiquement vôtre in 1969. He spent the 1970s further honing his love of music, putting out albums like his self-titled LP of 1971 and 1978's Simple histoire on the independent folk label L'Escargot while also making the pivot to literature, writing two science fiction novels in the early 1970s as well as publishing several collections of stories and songs. He also wrote the screenplay of the telefilm Charmants voisins. His musical reign continued into the 1980s, with a string of albums like 1986's Rasez les Alpes... qu'on voie la mer arriving via L'Escargot. He later cemented his support for the Palestinian people with the song "En Palestine". In 1988, he created the show Le Retour du Major Davel, followed by Le Chasseur de Loups, for which he assembled around thirty actors and eighty singers. More albums followed in the 1990s, including Jusqu'à quand? (1997), and a collaboration with Marco Zappa and Franz Hohler the following year on the two trilingual volumes of Being Swiss (1998-2000). In 2000 he wrote the screenplay for the TV movie Charming Neighbors and other albums emerged during that decade such as Chansons Têtues (2004) and Passant (2008). In 2013, Michel Bühler received the Jacques-Douai Prize for his musical output. Two final albums followed, La Vague (2016) and Rouge (2021), before his death from a heart attack in Lausanne on 7 November 2022 at the age of 77.
