As the sun shows off this week, on Local Matters, we had a trip to the south. Esch2022 has been gathering new energy recently to come back with loads of programs and projects this month. Some of them make you sit down for an hour or two, others make you walk and discover the streets instead of a stage. We took our headphones, the smartphone, a printed map of the route, to meet Catherine Kontz. The Luxembourgish composer created a soundwalk to make people discover the river Alzette. Catherine and her British project partner Sarah Grange, together with the ensemble United Instruments of Lucillin created audio tracks with music, soundscapes and stories that lead people through the city on the track of the invisible river. The walk starts at the train station in Audun-le-tiche right behind the French border. We participated with Catherine and a group of twelve people, children, parents, aunts and grandparents, all equipped with headphones. “It starts in France, next to the source, in Audun-le-Tiche. Then we go to Esch, always on the track of the river”, Catherine explains. We walk through the city of Esch, with music, explanations about the Alzette and wafting sounds in the ear, listen to the stories of two men, who tell how they used to take a good run-up to jump across the river. “For parts of the soundwalk we used material of the CNA, the national archive for audiovisual, they are our main partner. These are memories of two elderly men who in the sixties recorded their memories of growing up in Esch around 1900”, Catherine says. Today, children cannot jump across the Alzette anymore, in the 1920s, the river was covered with concrete and the main shopping street, the Rue de l’Alzette is now above the river. Although the river is not visible, the soundwalk makes it audible.

If you want to try out Catherine’s soundwalk in Esch, just download the audiofiles for free at catherinekontz.com on your smartphone, print the map and take your headphones. The walk takes around two hours.