The Chan Centre for the Performing Arts at the University of British Columbia was the stage for the festival that was held over the last weekend.
Yodeling way of music and singing was developed in the Alpine countries of Europe (Switzerland, Austria) long time ago and served as communication tool between people who lived in remote regions separated by mountains. Later it was one of the forms of musical expression and became the famous and distinctive music tradition of those countries performed by both community and family singing groups. It's also played in German province of Bavaria. It's nothing else like country and western music tradition for the USA, bossa-nova for Brazil or mariachi music for Mexico.
The festival started from big opening gala on Thursday night but still continues until Sunday, June 26th including group performances from Korea, the US and Canada as well as original yodeling and singing groups from Switzerland.
The opening concert on Friday night started with choir singing anthems of Canada, the US and Switzerland, followed by the flags parade and a speech by Swiss Consul General in Vancouver Mr. Urs Strausak. The President of the festival was Rolf A. Brulhart and huge choir of 285 members was conducted by Dubravko Pajalic.