A sponsor of the Valais festival through a company to which he is linked, composer and trader Igor Raykhelson leads a double life between music and the titanium trade.
In the courts, a company he founded is locked in a battle with a Russian manufacturer of the metal. On both sides, accusations fly thick and fast – and are firmly contested
By Juliette de Banes-Gardonne and Richard Etienne for Le Temps
August 17, 2026
The Verbier Festival’s results have the colour of great summers: green lights across the board, full houses and financial momentum at its peak. Twenty-seven sold-out concerts and some 50,000 spectators welcomed. The event wrapped up its 33rd edition on 2 August, yet amid the concerts, one name in particular has been arousing curiosity. On Sunday 26 July, the resort’s church hosted Rencontres inédites organised by the festival. What made the event truly unusual that day lay as much in the ad hoc line-up bringing together the cream of international virtuosos as in the programme’s audacious juxtaposition: a face-off between the Quartet in G minor by Johannes Brahms, towering figure of German Romanticism, and the Quintet for Piano and Strings No. 2 in E-flat minor by Igor Raykhelson, a contemporary composer.
On the festival’s website, a single line announced it soberly: concert “presented by Bahrain Titanium“. For three editions now, the Valais event has been “exploring” this composer’s repertoire – a spotlight that coincides with the appearance of this Bahraini sponsor, non-existent before 2024. The connection is no coincidence: behind the company looms a factory under construction in the Middle East, at an estimated cost of $200 million, whose chairman is none other than the composer on the programme.
Giant construction project in the Middle East
Igor Raykhelson does indeed lead a double life: piano virtuoso on one side, metals trader on the other. Not without difficulty, for behind the scores, several legal disputes are currently playing out – in Switzerland, Russia and the United States – between a Russian titanium giant, VSMPO-Avisma, and the composer among others. A free-for-all that has produced a barrage of cross-accusations which the courts will have to untangle. Until then, all parties benefit from the presumption of innocence.
On one side, VSMPO maintains that Igor Raykhelson and his associates orchestrated, between 2013 and 2020, a “sophisticated scheme relying on a complex network of companies and individuals to manipulate titanium transactions, divert funds from Russia and, presumably, evade US taxes”, according to international judicial assistance proceedings brought by VSMPO before the US District Court for the Southern District of New York in autumn 2025.
This “scheme“, according to the proceedings launched in the United States, is alleged to have served among other things to finance the Bahrain Titanium project. The composer and businessman disputes these accusations and sees them, on the contrary, as a smear campaign against him designed to make him abandon legitimate claims.
In Bahrain, construction of the titanium plant began in November 2025 under the aegis of Bahrain Titanium, a subsidiary of Interlink Metals & Chemicals, a trading company based in the canton of Fribourg and founded by Igor Raykhelson more than thirty years ago. The previous year, the Verbier Festival programme devoted a full page to promoting this future industrial complex, as did the brochure for the edition that has just ended. Could the controversial titanium money also have flowed into the festival’s musical patronage through Bahrain Titanium? The event’s organisers are not saying.
Asked about this by Le Temps, the director of the Verbier Festival, Martin Engstroem, replied: “The festival’s programming is strictly independent of funding agreements, whether public, commercial or philanthropic, the latter being by definition confidential.” A spokesperson for Igor Raykhelson, also contacted, echoed this: “His compositions are selected on the basis of their artistic merit. Igor Raykhelson has played no part in the festival’s commercial agreements.”
An extraordinary trajectory
Igor Raykhelson’s remarkable artistic and industrial trajectory begins in Leningrad, where he was born on 24 April 1961. His destiny shifted in 1979 when his family emigrated to the United States. Trained in the rigour of the Russian school, he honed his technique in New York under pianist Alexander Edelman while immersing himself in the jazz scene. Having become an American citizen, he developed a style at the crossroads of the classical repertoire and improvisation, performing alongside double bassist Eddie Gomez, collaborating with violist Yuri Bashmet and making a noted debut at Carnegie Hall. While BBC Music Magazine hailed his celebrated Jazz Suite in 2008 as “one of the most exhilarating and inventive works of its kind”, Igor Raykhelson appears to have gradually faded from the international music scene.
According to Operabase, a database that catalogues artistic performances worldwide, the composer-trader’s works have not been performed anywhere other than Verbier over the past three years. A musical agenda muted by legal proceedings, as his spokesperson concedes: “As you might imagine, the ongoing litigation has reduced the time he has been able to devote to his music.”
The concert pianist is said to have entered the closed world of critical metals through his father, Yefim Raykhelson, who is believed to have already been active in their trade during the Soviet era. Igor Raykhelson founded the company Interlink Metals & Chemicals in the canton of Fribourg in 1992, at a time when Russian companies were proliferating in Switzerland following the collapse of the USSR. His spokesperson specifies that he is no longer the firm’s owner but its consultant, “engaged because of his thorough knowledge of the Russian market in particular”.
Over the decades, the company became a key cog in the titanium trade thanks to its partner, the Russian group VSMPO, the world’s largest producer of the metal. For a long time, each played its part perfectly: the Russian firm manufactured the titanium while Interlink handled international sales in this strategic market. VSMPO notably supplied Boeing, before the American aircraft manufacturer suspended the contract after the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022.
A hundred million dollars
The first signs of tension between VSMPO and Interlink had appeared a few years earlier, following financial disagreements. This commercial dispute led to a legal battle spanning civil law, debt enforcement and arbitration.
Interlink applied to the Vaud courts on three occasions to have VSMPO’s assets in Switzerland sequestrated. Two initial freezing orders granted in August 2020 were swiftly lifted following a settlement reached the following autumn.
A third sequestration order covering 20.3 million francs was granted by the Justice of the Peace in Lausanne in December 2024. A short-lived victory for Interlink: the freezing order was overturned at first instance in May 2025. This annulment was upheld on appeal by the Debt Enforcement and Bankruptcy Chamber of the Vaud Cantonal Court on 6 March 2026.
Commercial arbitration proceedings continue in Geneva before the International Chamber of Commerce, where Interlink, which claims to have suffered contractual breaches by VSMPO, is pursuing its original claim in full, amounting to more than $85 million, against the Russian firm.
For its part, VSMPO filed a criminal complaint in Russia against its former director and Igor Raykhelson. This led to the arrest of the former in June 2025, while in March 2026 a court in Yekaterinburg, in the Urals, ordered the arrest of the latter in absentia, as he has long since ceased to live in Russia and resides in the United States.
The Russian giant simultaneously opened a front on the other side of the Atlantic, filing a petition before the US District Court for the Southern District of New York in October 2025, as revealed by the investigative outlet Gotham City. According to court documents reviewed by Le Temps, VSMPO is seeking to have banking secrecy lifted on Igor Raykhelson’s assets in the United States. Subpoenas target the trader’s American subsidiary, his son, and several banks.
False and absurd accusations
Daria Pustilnik, VSMPO’s lawyer in the United States, contacted by Le Temps, speaks of misappropriation of funds to the detriment of the Russian firm. The documents submitted to the American court describe a “scheme” aimed at misleading VSMPO. Interlink is alleged to have purchased some twenty million dollars’ worth of titanium chips from VSMPO before exporting them to Estonia, where they were supposedly repackaged under the label of “titanium charge” purportedly produced by Interlink, then resold to VSMPO for $270 million.
READ THE FULL ARTICLE HERE – https://www.letemps.ch/suisse/valais/exclusif-au-verbier-festival-entre-musique-et-titane-un-etonnant-virtuose-au-coeur-d-un-bras-de-fer-judiciaire