Bourgmeisterin: Fireside Chat – The Sound of Luxembourg: Reinventing the Country’s Musical Heritage

The Sound of Luxembourg: Reinventing the Country’s Musical Heritage (with live music demo!🎼)

❗️THE EVENT IS NOT WOMEN-ONLY – ALL GENDERS ARE WELCOME❗️

This is the 5th event of the Bourgmeisterin: Fireside Chats bi-monthly series – a cultural storytelling format supported by the Ministry of Family Affairs, Solidarity, Living Together, and Reception of Refugees .and co-produced with ARA City Radio that runs from winter 2026 till summer 2027. The series builds on Bourgmeisterin, a long-running cultural storytelling project that has been exploring Luxembourg’s history, traditions, and identity for 3 years.

For those who missed the previous events: all events are video-recorded as podcasts – here's the YouTube channel📺 to bring you up to speed😉

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How can a familiar melody carry the memory of a village, a celebration, or an entire country?

And can music become more than something we listen to – can it help people find their place within a community?

For this edition of Bourgmeisterin: Fireside Chats, we’ll explore music not simply as entertainment, but as a living expression of memory, identity, tradition, and belonging.

Joining us for the conversation is Martina Menichetti, a Luxembourg-based musician and the founder of Authentica, a band breathing new life into Luxembourg’s musical heritage and bringing traditional songs into dialogue with contemporary sounds.

🔹Together, we’ll follow Martina’s personal and musical journey, exploring the experiences that shaped her as an artist, her relationship with Luxembourg and its culture, and the path that eventually led her to create Authentica.

🔹Along the way, we’ll discover how Authentica came together: the idea behind the band, the musicians and influences that shaped its sound, and the choices involved in reinterpreting traditional music for contemporary audiences. How do you preserve the character of an old song while allowing it to evolve? And where does respect for tradition end and artistic reinvention begin?

🔹The conversation will then broaden to Luxembourg’s musical heritage. We’ll explore the history of Luxembourgish songs, fanfares, marching bands, and familiar tunes such as the Hämmelsmarsch. What roles have they played in village life, public celebrations, and national rituals? What can they tell us about Luxembourg’s history – and how important are they to society today?

🔹Finally, we’ll turn to music’s ability to build community and open culture to others. Can Luxembourgish songs help newcomers discover an entire additional layer of the country they now call home? And can presenting this heritage in new ways bring people from different backgrounds together, creating shared experiences without erasing what makes the tradition distinctive?

Because perhaps a musical tradition survives not only when its songs continue to be performed.

It survives when new generations – and new members of the community – are invited to listen, understand, and make it part of their own story.

👩‍🎤🎤Who’s leading the conversation

• The evening is hosted by Julia Khalyavko, the founder of Bourgmeisterin, a public history storytelling project dedicated to exploring Luxembourg’s history, traditions, and contemporary identity through articles, podcasts, and public conversations.
• The discussion is joined by Martina Menichetti, an Italian-born, Luxembourg-raised musician, composer, producer and speaker whose work spans folk, pop, classical, jazz and musical theatre. Performing as Authentica, she reimagines Luxembourgish folk music and stories through original compositions and arrangements shaped by Celtic and Mediterranean influences. In 2024, she became the first Luxembourgish artist to perform at Celtic Connections festival in Glasgow and released her debut album in 2025. A former member of the Philharmonie Luxembourg’s Education Department, Martina also creates interactive performances and workshops for all ages. Fluent in seven languages, she co-founded FAMIL, Luxembourg’s federation of performing musicians, in 2025.

🤝🍷🍔 Stay, talk, connect

The conversation doesn’t end when the fireside chat does. Catering and drinks will be served after the discussion, offering space to linger, exchange thoughts, and connect with fellow attendees in a relaxed, informal setting with up to 50 other attendees.

🎥🗣️NB! Recording, publication & spoken language

• Please note that the fireside chat will be video-recorded. Some before- and after-moments – as guests arrive and leave – may also be captured. The recording will be edited into a video-podcast episode and published on YouTube as part of the Bourgmeisterin: Fireside Chats series.
• The event will be held in English.

🤝 A big thank you to our partners for jumping on this adventure with us from the very beginning:

🎥 Super8, our videography partner bringing the Fireside Chats to life on screen,

📍Silversquare Liberté, our venue partner hosting this Fireside Chat in Luxembourg City,

📲 Intrépide Studio, our social media partner helping us shape and share the story

Follow Bourgmeisterin everywhere!

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🎟️ Admission is free thanks to the generous support of the Ministry, which makes this event accessible to all.

🚨 The order form includes a short pre-event survey: as this is a Ministry-funded initiative, we are required to report on certain aspects of the event, including audience demographics. Your responses help us meet these reporting obligations 🙏