Urs Toni Bühler
Born July 19, 1971 in Willisau, Lucerne, Switzerland
Is a classically-trained tenor and member of the operatic pop musical quartet, Il Divo.His musical training started at the age of five, when Bühler began singing in a choir and also learned to play violin, clarinet, piano, guitar and drums. His musical career, though, started when he was fifteen in an entirely different genre from lyrical song, being a member of a cover band and later the lead singer of a heavy metal band called "Conspiracy" when he was seventeen years old in Luzern. At the same time, he was already receiving music lessons at the Academy for School and Church Music. His progress in the field led him to move to Amsterdam in the Netherlands, where he studied voice at Sweelink Conservatorium with Udo Reinemann, a well known German baritone. Under the private tutoring of Swedish tenor Gösta Winbergh, member of Stockholm’s Royal Opera, and French tenor Christian Papis, Urs enriched his classical repertoire. He sang in the choir of the Dutch opera and even performed for one season in the Salzburg Festival under the direction of Claudio Abbado. Urs spent the last seven years prior to his commitment to Il Divo in Holland, singing oratorios and performing with the Netherlands Operaa Gezelschap (NOG).In December 2003, he became a member of the international musical quartet Il Divo along with Carlos MarÃn (Spain), Sébastien Izambard (France), and David Miller (United States).Besides their musical experience and prowess, the members of Il Divo are also recognized for their impeccable taste in fashion, dressing almost exclusively in Armani suits, along with their handsome looks. As a result of this, their first album, called Il Divo became a worldwide multiplatinum selling record when released in November 2004, entering Billboard at number four and selling five million copies worldwide in less than a year and knocking Robbie Williams from the number one spot in the charts. Their second album, Ancora, was released on November 7, 2005 in the United Kingdom. Il Divo's third album, Siempre, was released on November 21, 2006 in the United States and on November 27, 2006 internationally.Despite his long musical career, it is difficult to find works outside of his academic field; there are almost no professional recordings available of his career before Il Divo.
