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With long hair, chiselled looks, athlete’s build and air of zen calm, 39-year-old motorcycle fanatic Urs Buhler
seems more like a rock idol than a dedicated opera singer.
Indeed, as a teenager growing up in Switzerland, he sang with local heavy rock band The Conspiracy, who released an album in 1991, ‘One To One’.
But while studying to be a music teacher, Urs had an epiphany.
“I switched, almost one day to the other, and started listening to only classical music,” recalls Urs.
“The quality of the great composers, the arrangements, the richness of the ideas, I find incredibly fascinating, so beautiful,
so well constructed, it does something to me, it reaches me deep within.”
A serious, focussed individual, Urs received degrees in music education and voice studies from The Academy of School and Church Music in Switzerland,
before gaining a masters degree in classical music from the Amsterdam Conservatory.
“I was singing in the opera choir in Amsterdam, one of the top ten opera houses in the world.
I have seen the greatest singers there performing live on stage.
I remember so many times when we have done a show, that took you from six when you get in the theatre for makeup till eleven when you get out,
and I went home to listen to the entire opera again on the stereo til two in the morning, cause I was so wrapped up in it.
Good classical music has something that just cannot leave me indifferent.”
For the next seven years, Urs made a living as a freelance singer in Holland, Belgium, Germany and France, performing oratorio and opera.
“It is not an easy life, but I have always managed to live purely on my profession.”
When he got the offer to join Il Divo, he was, he admits, extremely sceptical.
“I was an opera purist, and I said to Simon, ‘I’m happy to try but I don’t think its gonna get us anywhere.’”
Urs is, of course, delighted to have been proven wrong. “I have learned a lot. Singing with Il Divo you have to be very flexible with your voice.
In classical music there is technique, a way of producing a sound which is right, and another which is not right.
In pop it is all about the feeling, which might be a breath or a croak, which comes naturally to Sebastian but I have to work myself into it.
I have learned a lot about classical singing as well, especially because Carlos and David are just great singers.
All the vocal arrangement is a very fluid process that happens in the studio, amongst us. When it works, it is fantastic.”
These days, he admits, he is not quite so purist in his tastes. “I listen to a bit of everything, pop, classical, heavy metal.
Its to do with growing up, settling into your own personality.”
His taste in rock, he says, veers towards “quite violent stuff”, like Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish.
“There are similarities with opera, it can be very virtuosic, dramatic.
In an orchestra, when everything is going, and the double bass is sawing very fast, it has the power rock bands get with distorted guitars.
But classical is my love. When I sing at home, I sing Mozart.”
He has about ten motorbikes, Harleys and Goldwings, in various states of repair.
“I take them to pieces, restore them myself, go to sports meets and fairs to find parts. That’s a fascinating thing for me.”
Urs ambition, he says, is simply to be happy. So far so good.
“I take my life step by step, see what doors open, make a choice, walk through one and see what’s behind it.
I always have done that. That’s what brought me to Il Divo. It’s worked out OK.”
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Ask Urs Buhler what most makes him proud about Il Divo¹s achievements over the past seven years, and, intriguingly, he will talk not of the past but about the present and the future. For the classically trained Swiss tenor, music means moving forward ￢ maturing, fine-tuning, perfecting. “We¹re constantly trying to push things upwards, to a different level,” he says.
“Whenever we do something new, we want to do it better. And we¹re still managing to do that, which fills me with great satisfaction.”
Urs' musical background sowed the seeds for this spirit of restless activity and inquiry. As a five-year-old in Lucerne, he joined the local choir, and began to take lessons in violin, clarinet, piano, guitar and drums. Even then, you couldn¹t box him in. At the same time as he was studying at the music academy, Urs was fronting a heavy metal band. Later, he would travel to the Netherlands to study singing at the Sweelink Conservatorium, appear at the Salzburg Festival and earn a distinguished reputation as an operatic tenor at the Netherlands Opera and many other opera houses across Europe. So Urs has never been about standing still, artistically, and settling back into a comfort zone ￢ or respecting the barriers some insist on placing between different musical genres. “From my training,” he laughs, “I know, from the classical point of view, that this is a good sound, and that is a bad one. But in every single other style of singing, that doesn¹t apply. Blurring the boundaries upsets the purists, certainly ￢ but that¹s a good thing to do.”
If he does look back, it is to compare Il Divo now with the four singers who came together in 2003 and set about realising their vision. At the beginning, Urs says, they were very much feeling their way, all of them operating, to some extent, outside their customary field. That¹s all changed now. “The contribution we make has really progressed, especially on the new album. We¹re much more involved than we were in the past. And I think that¹s because we have proved ourselves. So people have the trust in us: that we really do know what we¹re doing.”
In the 18 months that have elapsed since Il Divo completed the world tour they had embarked on to promote their 2008 album, The Promise, Urs has been realising another dream, working on the renovation of the house he recently bought. “In my personal life, I tend to switch off. I live in the countryside, it¹s incredibly remote, just fields and mountains around me. My house is a very old property, and I¹m restoring it, which is very time-consuming, but incredibly fulfilling. I¹m project-managing the restoration, and I use local people from the nearby village, small, traditional firms. I love it, but it¹s going to take years. And I love to play guitar and ride my motorbikes, I¹m passionate about both.” He appreciates the rewards Il Divo has brought him, he says, but he would never lose sight of what real life is all about. “I don¹t need to have seven Ferraris in the garage. Yes, I have a big house, and a few motorbikes, and that¹s enough. I feel very Zen and serene about what I do and how I live my life.”
Looking ahead to the launch of the new album, Urs cannot contain his excitement ￢ or conceal his pride. “We¹ve recorded an adaptation of Samuel Barber¹s Adagio for Strings, with a new chorus. It sounds incredibly dramatic. The whole album is like that; it¹s much more serious, more mature.
Since we started, there have been so many people out there trying to do what we do. So we needed to change, or it¹s no longer interesting for us, or for the audience. We have devised material that is rooted in pieces of classical string and piano music: for instance, another new song is based on Beethoven¹s Moonlight sonata. And, harmonically, that is bound to be more interesting, more dramatic.”
Urs¹s long and varied musical journey is about to take a new turn, and he can¹t wait for Il Divo¹s fans to hear the results. “We¹re so excited about this record,” he smiles. “We think it¹s the best work we¹ve ever done.”
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18年版は個別peofileがない模様。
About Il Divo:
Joined by Simon Cowell in 2003, Urs Buhler, Sebastien Izambard, Carlos Marin and David Miller, pioneered an entirely new musical genre when they released their groundbreaking debut album in 2004. Since then, the group of four international members has achieved success without comparison in the whole world, with more than 30 million discs sold, 50 discs No.1, 160 recognitions of Gold and Platinum in more than 33 countries and four world tours with all tickets sold.
Il Divo have released seven albums to date. After the debut album that bears his name (and whose sales earned them the Platinum album), his later albums - Ancora (2005), Siempre (2006), The Promise (2008) and Wicked Game (2011) - have developed the successful combination of virtuosity and popularity of the group. With their recording of 2013, A Musical Affair, they celebrated the classics of Broadway and The West End. In 2015 they released "Amor y Pasion" compiling the best Hispanic songs, debuting in the first week at number 1 of the Latin Albums Chart, with 5 thousand copies sold in America in the first week, according to the Billboard magazine.
They are currently in the preproduction of their new album "Timeless" that will be sed in April of 2018, starting the World Tour.
© Copyright 2018 Il Divo all rights reserved.
(H29.Feb)
