The son of tenor Ernst Haefliger, Michael Haefliger was born in Berlin in 1961 and took a degree in violin at Juilliard, where he studied with Ivan Galamian and Dorothy Delay (1978-83). He then studied management at the School of Business, Law, and Social Sciences of St. Gallen University, earning an Executive MBA. A scholarship later enabled him to attend the General Manager Program at Harvard University. At first, Haefliger pursued a solo career as a concert violinist, which took him inter alia to the festivals in Lucerne, Interlaken, and Spoleto. In 1986 he became a co-founder of the Young Artists in Concert Festival in Davos, which he headed as executive director until 1998. He was also artistic director of the Collegium Novum in Zurich, where he mounted a Sofia Gubaidulina retrospective as well as the cycles "Music from USA" and "Vienna x 3." On 1 January 1999, he became the executive director of LUCERNE FESTIVAL, at that time still known as "Internationale Musikfestwochen Luzern." Since then he has instituted many new ideas and enlarged the annual programs of the three festivals: Easter, Summer, and Piano. He has given special attention to contemporary music, emphasizing it by retaining composers-in-residence on an annual basis. By appointing artistes étoiles, he now offers outstanding performers an opportunity to help design the Festival's program every summer. He also co-founded the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ORCHESTRA with Claudio Abbado and the LUCERNE FESTIVAL ACADEMY with Pierre Boulez. In 2007 he announced plans to build a new performance venue for music theater: the Salle Modulable, scheduled to open in 2013-14. In January 2000 the World Economic Forum in Davos named Michael Haefliger a "Global Leader of Tomorrow." He has also received the European Cultural and Innovation Prize (2003) and the Tourism Award from the Lucerne Tourism Forum (2007).
In 2007 he also launched the project "Salle Modulable". He has been a deputy of its foundation board since April 2008.
23 October 2009