Venues & stages
Académie suisse de Cor des Alpes
 of Montreux.](/images/optimized/places/academie-cor-des-alpes_1800.webp)
- Type
- Alphorn ensemble
- Address
- Montreux
The Académie suisse de Cor des Alpes (Alphorn Academy of Switzerland) was founded in 1998 by Francis Scherly and Jozsef Molnar, and has its seat in Montreux. It offers its members group rehearsals and courses in Villeneuve, Villars-Sainte-Croix and Corpataux, individual lessons with dedicated teachers, and organises week-long seminars in Switzerland and abroad. It is best known for its large “Ensemble” of fifteen to thirty alphorns, whose sonic power impresses audiences.
The Académie suisse de Cor des Alpes
Founded in 1998 in Montreux
In the spring of 1998, Francis Scherly and Jozsef Molnar met at Surval, on the heights of Montreux, to imagine an alphorn academy. The vision soon took shape: the Académie suisse de Cor des Alpes was founded in 1998 and became an association in 2000, with its seat in Montreux. Its purpose is simple: to delight lovers of traditional music with the timeless vibration of the horn’s sounds. It offers group rehearsals and courses in Villeneuve, Villars-Sainte-Croix and Corpataux, individual lessons, and week-long seminars in Switzerland and abroad.
The academy has accompanied the revival of the alphorn: since its founding, the number of players has more than doubled in Switzerland. It now brings together around a hundred members around a charter that champions conviviality and solidarity. Francis Scherly, co-founder turned honorary president, likes to recall that “the encounters one makes here go beyond, on a human level, the musical performance.”
A large ensemble on tour
The academy is best known for its “Ensemble”, which brings together fifteen to thirty alphorns depending on the event: a rare formation whose sonic power leaves an unforgettable memory. It has performed in countless places, from the Montreux Jazz Festival to the Verbier Festival, from the Patrouille des Glaciers to the 1st of August celebrations, from the Château de Chillon to the Rochers-de-Naye, in partnership with the MOB.
Its horns have also sounded far beyond the borders: Paris, Tenerife, China, Hungary, Austria, Morocco, Egypt, Ireland or Kenya. The ensemble likes to perform in the open air, for instance beneath the Marché couvert of Montreux.
Travel journals
The academy’s tours read like travel journals: dozens of 3.60-metre alphorns stretched across the Jemaa el-Fna square in Marrakech, before the fort of Mombasa, near Innsbruck or on the ridge of the Rochers-de-Naye.
Each stop has its anecdotes: an improvised serenade on the forecourt of Notre-Dame in Paris, a guard of honour for the officials of the Francophonie Summit in Montreux, a tribute in Luxor to the 36 Swiss killed in the 1997 attack, or Kenyan monkeys coming to bury their ears in the bell. “Arriving with an alphorn is like arriving with a delicious bar of chocolate,” sums up Francis Scherly.
The alphorn
A legendary instrument, the alphorn fascinates by its size and its sound. Made entirely of spruce wood, it measures 3.40 or 3.60 metres, has no valves and produces only natural sounds, through the sheer pressure of air and lips in the mouthpiece. Its song can carry more than ten kilometres. Long reserved for folk music, it has opened up to contemporary compositions, jazz and even pop, without losing any of its unifying power.
Used from the 14th century by cowherds to communicate from one valley to another and to soothe the animals at milking, it might have ended up in a museum: it was the Romantic era that saved it, making it a national symbol.