BASEL, Switzerland (AP) \u2014 City fountains became impromptu rehearsal spaces this weekend as yodelers<\/a> at a festival in Basel, Switzerland, squeezed in last-minute practice while cooling off during Europe\u2019s June heat wave.<\/a><\/p>\n At one fountain, a folk band dipped their toes in the water on Saturday, as festivalgoers clapped along or cooled their hands under the flowing stream.<\/p>\n From Friday to Sunday, singers and alphorn players filled the streets and spontaneous bursts of yodeling echoed through restaurants, where diners initially reacted with surprise before joining in.<\/p>\n In Petersplatz, in central Basel, seamstresses remained on call throughout the festival to repair the traditional Alpine folk costumes worn by participants in case of emergency.<\/p>\n This year, however, it was the fountain rehearsals that became the festival\u2019s defining image, as the city battled record temperatures of around 39 degrees Celsius (102 degrees Fahrenheit).<\/p>\n Around 12,000 performers and nearly 200,000 visitors traveled to Basel for the Eidgen\u00f6ssisches Jodlerfest, Switzerland\u2019s national yodeling festival. It was the first time the northwestern Swiss city hosted the event since 1924.<\/p>\n Swiss yodeling was added to UNESCO\u2019s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in December 2025, making this the first national festival since the tradition received international recognition. It is a distinction many Swiss take great pride in.<\/p>\n Unlike the brighter, more melodic style often associated with Austria and the Tyrol region, Swiss yodeling is slower and more melancholic \u2014 an emotionally nuanced tradition rooted in distinct regional dialects.<\/p>\n “I\u2019ve always loved music, and I left here as a child. When I moved back to New Zealand, I wanted to stay connected to Swiss culture, so I joined a New Zealand-Swiss-Kiwi yodeling club,\u201d said Freddie Conquer, a member of Jodlerclub Echo Basel, one of the clubs hosting the festival.<\/p>\n The participants competed in three disciplines: yodeling, alphorn playing and flag-throwing.<\/p>\n The alphorn is a long wooden instrument traditionally used by herdsmen in the Alps. It can stretch to more than 3 meters (10 feet) in length, with its sound carrying across valleys \u2014 or, during the festival, through Basel\u2019s streets. It produces all of its pitches using natural harmonics alone, with no valves or keys.<\/p>\n \u201cEverything is down to the mouthpiece, hearing the note in your head, and then using your lips to shape the pitch. The higher the note, the harder you have to blow,\u201d said Pierre-Andr\u00e9 Karlen, who was rehearsing on a school lawn.<\/p>\n On Sunday morning, participants gathered outside the town hall, eagerly awaiting the competition results. Members of Jodlerklub Balfrin, from the town of Visp in the canton of Valais, were nervously examining the lists and later celebrated loudly after receiving a perfect score of one, one of several such teams.<\/p>\n As flags were carried through the old town during the festival\u2019s closing parade, members of Jodlerklub Muttenz rode past on a tractor to cheers from the crowd. Alphorn players followed \u2014 their instruments and costumes almost certainly a burden in the heavy heat, but the smiles remained.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yakimaherald.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" BASEL, Switzerland (AP) \u2014 City fountains became impromptu rehearsal spaces this weekend as yodelers at a festival in Basel, Switzerland, squeezed in last-minute practice while cooling off during Europe\u2019s June heat wave. At one fountain, a folk band dipped their toes in the water on Saturday, as festivalgoers clapped along or cooled their hands under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2481120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[413499],"class_list":["post-2481119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-ap-entertainment"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Heat-forces-yodelers-at-annual-Swiss-festival-to-sing-in.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2481119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2481119"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2481119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2481121,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2481119\/revisions\/2481121"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2481120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2481119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2481119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2481119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}