Yo-de-lay-UNESCO? Swiss hope for yodel heritage listing

LUCERNE, SWITZERLAND:

The Unesco Intergovernmental Committee, United Nations' culture body, is convening from Monday (today) to Saturday to examine nominations for its 'Intangible Cultural Heritage list', including a bid by Switzerland to add yodeling.

The committee is responsible for the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. The primary purpose is to evaluate and inscribe new cultural traditions and expressions from around the world onto the global heritage lists.

Switzerland hopes to have yodelling recognised by the UN to protect the ancestral sing-song tradition of the Alpine nation's herders and shepherds.

The country currently counts some 12,000 keen yodellers, lilting their way through the style's distinctive up-and-down melodies across 780 yodelling clubs. Enthusiasts can also be found in the mountains of neighbouring Austria and Germany.

Unlike in 2020, when Switzerland teamed up with France to seek recognition for the Jura region's watchmaking history, the Swiss have decided to honour their tradition of splendid isolation and pursue yodelling recognition alone.

"This is important for the future," Markus Egli, choir director at the Buergerturner Yodel Club in Lucerne, told AFP on the sidelines of a concert in the picturesque, peak-fringed city this week.

"This singing is part of our culture, of Switzerland's identity," he added, noting that yodelling began as "a means of communication between one mountain and another."

Yvonne Eichenberger, a soprano in the choir, explained that yodelling is technically demanding, requiring rapid switches between low chest notes and the upper octaves of the singer's head voice. "It requires time and practise," the 35-year-old said.

From its bucolic origins, yodelling has spread far beyond Switzerland, with Swiss migrants influencing folk and country music in the United States. Conversely, pop music has influenced yodelling, with one artist in the French-speaking canton of Vaud even creating an improbable mash-up of yodel and Latin American music, dubbed "yodelton."

As well as being passed down through families and choirs, the tradition has also entered higher education. Students at Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts have had the option of enrolling in a master's programme in yodelling since 2018.