Swiss Boys Choirs: Escharlens Choir


Figure 1.--Here we see the Escharlens Choir. We believe it is a choir in a small Swiss village. We believe it is a Catholic choir. Click on the image to see the choir at a community religious festival.

We have obtained a few images of a choir in Escharlens. We have no information, however, about the choir. We are not positive that this is a Swiss choir. Escharlens does appear to be a Swiss town and this appears to be a choir in the town. We are guessing that the ctown is primarily Catholic. We have, however, no information about the choir. It appears to be a Catholic choir. The boys wear a uniform of caps, vests, short pants and kneesocks. I'm not sure what the inspiration for the costumes were. The scull caps are interesting. I wonder if the inspiration here was the Catholic Church. We notice that priests wore red scull caps as did altar boys for many years. I'm not sure about the colors of the costumes. Nor are we sure when this choir was functioning. Hopefully our Swiss readers will be able to tell us something about this choir. A reader writes, "Nowadays there is no Swiss city whose the name is « Escharlens ». However, 800 or 900 years ago the actual “Echallens” (located in “Canton de Vand”) was the ancient “Escharlens”. See the explanation (in French)." This is one of the sites HBC found and used as a basis for locating this choir in Switzerland. As we noted above, we are not at all sure that this choir is Swiss. We continue to be interested in any thoughts HBC readers may have. One Swiss reader tells us, "Actual name of the village is "Echarlens", spelling of Escharlens being an very old one. The village is situated in canton of Fribourg, in the renowned part of "Gruyère", boys are dressed in traditional costume of "armaillis". They are not really a boys choir, but what we call in French "enfants de choeur" (boys serving the mass).







HBC





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Created: 7:29 PM 11/26/2004
Last updated: 6:38 PM 4/22/2005