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

Unesco’s Intergovernmental Committee, the United Nations’ cultural body, is meeting from Monday (today) to Saturday to consider nominations for the “Intangible Cultural Heritage List”, including Switzerland’s bid to add yodeling.

The committee is responsible for the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage. The primary purpose is to assess and inscribe new cultural traditions and expressions from around the world on the World Heritage Lists.

Switzerland is hoping to get yodeling recognized by the UN to protect the alpine nation’s ancestral song tradition of herders and shepherds.

The country currently has around 12,000 enthusiastic yodellers, who belt out the style’s signature tunes in 780 yodelling clubs. Fans can also be found in the mountains of neighboring Austria and Germany.

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

“This is important for the future,” Marcus Egli, choir director at the Buergerturner Yodel Club in Lucerne, told AFP on the sidelines of a concert in the picturesque, top-flight city this week.

“This song is part of our culture, the identity of Switzerland,” he added, noting that yodeling 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 shifts between the low chest notes and the upper octaves of the singer’s head voice. “It takes time and practice,” the 35-year-old said.

From its bucolic origins, yodelling has spread far beyond Switzerland, with Swiss immigrants influencing folk and country music in the United States. Instead, pop music has influenced yodelling, with one artist in the French-speaking canton of Vaud even creating an unlikely combination of yodel and Latin American music, dubbed “yodelton.”

In addition to being passed down through families and choirs, the tradition has also entered higher education. Students at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts have had the option of enrolling in a master’s program in yodelling since 2018.