Kilkenny Arts Festival 2024

For over half a century, August in the Marble City has been synonymous with extraordinary artists and performers bringing their work to our beautiful city and fantastic audiences. New ideas in ancient spaces is the hallmark of Kilkenny in the late summer, and this year is packed with new work, intriguing collaborations, intimate experiences and epic spectacle - we invite everyone to come and join us to experience this special kinship between artists and audiences.
Highlights include:
Irish National Opera with the European Premiere of two operas from composer Emma O’Halloran - Trade /Mary Motorhead with librettist Mark O’Halloran
The Irish Premiere performance of DRONE MASS by Jóhann Jóhannsson; presented with Chamber Choir Ireland and Crash Ensemble
A new commissioned spectacle for Kilkenny Castle by Fictions Picture Company, directed by Jack Phelan; presented in association with OPW
A chamber and orchestral series that includes:
The Irish Premiere of Errollyn Wallen - Dances for Orchestra, commissioned by Orchestra in residence, Irish Chamber Orchestra in a programme that includes Mozart’s Symphony No 40, with Vaughan Williams’ hauntingly beautiful Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis.
A programme of contemporary classical music in the hands of international superstar Mari Samuelsen in solo recital and in the company of the RTÉ Concert Orchestra in programmes that range from Arvo Pärt’s heartbreaking Spiegel im Spiegel through Nils Frahm, Bryce Dessner, Philip Glass, to the closing of the festival with Max Richter’s utterly engrossing Vivaldi’s Four Seasons Recomposed.
Philip Glass’ music appears throughout, featuring in programmes from Festival Favourites, the Carducci String Quartet, alongside popular quartets from Mozart, Shostakovich, Fanny Mendelssohn and Beethoven; and in a very special late night at the Set Theatre alongside Steve Reich’s groundbreaking work from 1988, Different Trains; Rising star Irish Pianist Máire Carroll performs a performance of ten of Glass’ trance-like Études for solo piano; Dutch/Korean harpist Lavinia Meijer is also a Glass specialist and interprets a range of Glass works alongside some of her own compositions; while the mighty Crash Ensemble treat us to a stonking performance of Glassworks.
Piano recitals feature heavily also, in the stunning acoustic of St. John’s Priory - Finghin Collins in a popular Romantic programme of Chopin and Schumann; and he joins forces with Máire Carroll to perform for the first time together in its entirety, the New Ross Piano Festival’s commissions of 15 works from contemporary Irish composers in response to the Ros Tapestries, currently on display at Kilkenny Castle.
Pavel Kolesnikov & Samson Tsoy take over the Priory for three recitals, beginning with a morning performance (for Four Hands) of Stravinsky’s immense work, The Rite of Spring; Kolesnikov takes on Bach’s Golberg Variations and Tsoy finishes off the day with Beethoven’s seminal three last Sonatas.
The Marble City Sessions features Artist in Residence Martin Hayes with a thrilling line up including Cormac Begley, Kate Ellis, Cleek Schrey’s Appalachian Trio, Aoife Ní Bhriain, Liam Byrne, Liz Knowles, Niall Vallely, Niwel Tsumbu, Mick McAuley and John Doyle.
There are headline concerts with Lisa O’Neil, Mick Flannery, Kate Stable’s This is the Kit, Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba and Richard Dawson, and the premiere performance of a new work from Caimin Gilmore featuring himself with Kate Ellis and Lavinia Meijer.
In a development year we welcome our theatre partners Rough Magic to showcase their work with Peter Hanly on his new project which takes a very personal look at the debilitating nature of stage fright in What are you Afraid Of? And Martin ‘Beanz’ Warde presents his darkly comic piece The Dead House.
In Literature and discussions we present Martina Evans as poet in residence to discuss and read from her work, and Paul Muldoon returns to Kilkenny Arts Festival to launch his new libretto, for a work to be premiered at KAF 2025 Custom of the Coast as well as readings from his new collection Joy in Service on Rue Tagore. The Annual Hubert Butler Lecture is delivered this year by Fintan O’Toole - Culture Wars: Art and Politics in the Age of Trump.
Butler Gallery together with Kilkenny Arts Festival presents the German-born, London-based artist Liane Lang in an exhibition - Deep Time Dip.
The Festival Gallery this year relocated to the Parade, with an exhibition of the photography of iconic Kilkenny photographer Ross Costigan; and we partner again with KCAT Studio in Callan where Re-Connection will feature artists from eight international peer organisations in a group show including KCAT itself.
Kilkenny Arts Festival is grateful for the continued support from funders, particularly its principal funder, the Arts Council; Kilkenny County Council and Fáilte Ireland.