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WhereKitchener-Waterloo brims with Swiss-German culture!

ParticipantsOver a dozen visiting choirs will share their voices!

EventsExperience the rural, musical heart of KW!

Moo!No link here, just a cow! Taken by our Musical Director, Anne Loeffler.

About NASSA  

The North American Swiss Singing Alliance (NASSA) is a national Swiss singing organization, currently comprised of fifteen Swiss choral groups from the Upper Midwest and Canada, representing approximately 400 singers in mixed, men’s, women’s and yodel choirs.

Its primary objectives are to bring Swiss singing societies together, and to foster and elevate Swiss national folksongs and yodel songs. This is accomplished every three years through a Swiss singing festival that is hosted by an individual member society. The main features of each festival, besides a good dose of Gemuetlichkeit , are a singing competition amongst the member choirs and a mass concert, which combines the efforts and talents of all the singers for the public.

Formed in the late 1800s with singing societies from the United States, the organization was originally known as the Swiss American Singing Alliance. In 1982 the Montagna Singers based in Ottawa, Ontario and the Jodlerklub Heimattreu Calgary, Alberta joined the American Swiss Singing Alliance as the first choirs from Canada. In 1988, the latter hosted the first festival in Canada and subsequently, the name was changed to the North American Swiss Singing Alliance.

Representatives of each member society form the Executive Board, which manages the day-to-day affairs of NASSA.

At the tenth singing festival held in St. Louis, Missouri in 1917, a Bundes-Banner, or society flag, was endowed to the Swiss American Singing Alliance. Since that time, the Bundes-Banner has been ceremoniously passed at each festival from one host society to the next.

There is a companion organization to NASSA on the west coast called the United Swiss Singing Societies of the Pacific Coast (USSSPC), which was formed in 1934 and also has festivals to promote similar goals and objectives. One main difference in the festivals of these two national organizations is that the USSSPC features an exhibition, rather than a competitive singing event, amongst its member societies.

Mission of Sängerfest 2012

Saengerfest 2012 is the name of the 40th Singing and Yodeling Festival that is organized every three years, on behalf of the North American Swiss Singing Alliance (NASSA). NASSA and its member societies in the United States and Canada are dedicated to the preservation of the Swiss cultural traditions and to foster and elevate Swiss Folksongs and Yodel songs.

The Swiss Choir Thames Valley in Monkton, south-western Ontario, was chosen by the delegates to host the 40th edition of NASSA Song Festival in summer 2012. To meet this mandate, the host chose the twin cities of Kitchener-Waterloo as the venue for the three-day event. The competition and Grand Concert will be held at Kitchener's Centre in the Square, a venue that has received wide acclaim for its excellent acoustics. This hall seats about 2000 people.

Please join us for three days of Swiss Music, Songs, Yodeling and festivities in Kitchener/Waterloo, Ontario, June 28 to July 1, 2012.

History of Past North American Swiss Sängerfests