Juliette De Banes Gardonne
Published on November 20, 2024 at 10:19. / Modified on November 20, 2024 at 11:48.
In the light, his eyes look like topazes, these translucent blue stones that he used to engrave. Ludovic Ottiger is terse, not in the figurative sense but in the literal sense of the term. A specialist in cutting precious stones and fine stones, he shapes them for the world of luxury watchmaking in a workshop in Versoix. On the other hand, he is a musician, poly-instrumentalist, lover of oriental music. In a last ray of Lausanne sunshine, this Franco-Swiss native of Haute-Savoie recounts the singularity of his dual journey.
It was in the village of Archamps, at the foot of Salève, that Ludovic Ottiger grew up. As school wasn’t really his thing, at the age of 15 he began an apprenticeship as a polisher at Patek Philippe in Geneva. In parallel with this training, his appetite for music was first awakened by the jaw harp. With its vibrations and sounds that evoke a strange spring, the jaw harp is considered one of the oldest instruments in the world, and is found among all the nomadic peoples of Eurasia. “My curiosity immediately turned to the traditional music of the Mediterranean basin and the Middle East.” In 2010, at a festival, his back was to the stage when he heard a few notes from a double flute from Rajasthan.
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