ROBY SEIDEL

Born: August 16th, 1942, Saint-Jean, Geneva (Switzerland)

Died: January 3rd, 2014, Geneva (Switzerland)

Nationality: Swiss

In due course, the short impression below will be replaced with a more extensive career overview

BIOGRAPHY

Swiss jazz giant Roby Seidel studied tonic sol-fa as well as the violin, cornet, and saxophone at the Geneva Conservatory. He worked as a music teacher and wrote arrangements for the francophone Swiss broadcaster Radio Suisse Romande. He recorded an album with The Anita Kerr Singers, for which he played most of the instruments and wrote part of the arrangements. He has been a big band conductor for decades, with his own Roby Seidel Big Band, but also with the Georgiam’s Big Band, the Eagle’s Variety Big Band, and the Big Band de Lausanne. He has written the instrumentation for the Geneva Revue for many years. Moreover, he instructs future music teachers in Geneva and Lausanne.

EUROVISION SONG CONTEST

In 1992, Roby Seidel was asked to arrange and conduct ‘Mister Music Man’, the Swiss entry to the Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö. This song, performed by Daisy Auvray, is unique in one way: it is the only song ever in the contest about a conductor; in the lyrics, the singer begs her ‘Mister Music Man’ to play their favourite song over and over again. Aptly, the orchestration contained many references to big band repertoire, which gave the entry a distinct retro feel. Despite the maximum of the points from the Icelandic jury, this highly original Swiss effort only finished fifteenth.

EUROVISION INVOLVEMENT YEAR BY YEAR

1992 Malmö

Country – Switzerland

Song title – “Mister Music Man”

Rendition – Daisy Auvray

Lyrics – Gordon Dent

Composition – Gordon Dent

Studio arrangement (demo) – unknown (probably Gordon Dent)

Live orchestration – Roby Seidel

Conductor – Roby Seidel

Score – 15th place (32 votes)