Kilkenny Arts Festival 2022 Programme Preview

We’re thrilled to welcome you to an exhilarating set of events and performances in the Marble City from 4 - 14 August!!
It’s a joy to return to a full programme of music featuring Anne Sofie von Otter, Brooklyn Rider, Irish Chamber Orchestra, Irish Baroque Orchestra, Chamber Choir Ireland, Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin, Carducci String Quartet, Malcolm Proud, Ailish Tynan, Tara Erraught, the Rollercoaster Sessions, the Marble City Sessions with co-curator Martin Hayes and much more. We’re delighted to bring back the beloved Secret Garden Music series, free each day across special spaces in the city.
New commissions come fully into being this year, from Róisín ReImagined with Muireann Nic Amhlaoibh and ICO to Linda Buckley’s new work for Liam Byrne and Crash Ensemble. Deirdre Gribbin’s new song cycle is premiered by Sharon Carty and ICO, while poet in residence Theo Dorgan and Colm Mac Con Iomaire bring their ambitious new bilingual work to the Watergate Theatre and Paula Meehan performs her response to Joyce’s Ulysses in the centenary year of its publication.
Our new production of Handel’s Semele with Opera Collective Ireland, directed by Patrick Mason, comes from the same creative team that wowed audiences with The Return of Ulysses in 2018; and Rough Magic bring their special alchemy to the Parklands of Kilkenny Castle for a new production of Shakespeare’s The Tempest directed by Lynne Parker. Eszter Némethi’s Speak Like No One in Particular will challenge audiences to explore the ways in which we ‘other’ each other, and in Callan we get a peek at the development of The Local, a major new site sensitive play from Asylum Productions, coming in 2023.
Following their ground breaking production of Strauss’ Elektra last summer, Irish National Opera return to Kilkenny to premiere a virtual reality opera, Out of the Ordinary, directed by Jo Mangan; and Luke Murphy/Attic Projects see the River Nore become the stage for their new work, Slow Tide.
Always a hit with Kilkenny audiences, thrilling aerialists Loosysmokes bring their new show In Rhythms to an atmospheric warehouse in Callan. With Butler Gallery we present a set of intriguing retrospective multimedia works from Kevin Atherton, and the Festival Gallery hosts an exhibition by the young artist Stephen Doyle whose work explores queer identity.
Masha Gessen - who has written extensively on Russia, autocracy, LGBTQ+ rights, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, amongst others - delivers the 2022 Hubert Butler Lecture, and the Hubert Butler Essay Prize is presented mid-festival amidst an exciting line-up of talks and readings at the Parade Tower.
From the castle to the cathedral, Cleere’s Theatre to Callan, the Marble City is the place to be this August.
See you there!