An eclectic lineup in store at Kilkenny Arts Festival

Entering its second half century, Kilkenny Arts Festival 2024 promises an eclectic mix of cutting edge new work in the magical setting of Ireland’s medieval city.

Details were also announced of three highlight events that will feature in KAF 2024. Kilkenny Arts Festival will present the Irish Premiere of Jóhann Jóhannsson’s Drone Mass; performed by two of Ireland’s most virtuosic ensembles, Chamber Choir Ireland and Crash Ensemble, conducted by Paul Hillier. This work will be performed in St Canice’s Cathedral on Saturday, August 10 at 9.30pm.

Icelandic composer Jóhann Jóhannsson (1969-2018) wrote for theatre, dance, television and film. His work was mostly stylised by its blending of traditional orchestration with contemporary electronic elements. He was nominated for an Academy award and won a Golden Globe for Best Original Score for the film The Theory of Everything.

Written shortly before his untimely death, Jóhannsson’s statement work, Drone Mass was commissioned by the American Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) and premiered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with ACME and the vocal group, Roomful of Teeth in 2015.

From an ever-evolving composer it bridges the ancient and utterly modern. Jóhannsson’s Drone Mass is not a ‘mass’ in the sense we might know it, it can be described best as a contemporary oratorio – the text is that of an ancient Egyptian Coptic Hymn that consists of only free-floating vowels.

Another festival highlight this year will be This is the Kit, the musical project of Kate Stables; the alt-folk outfit that is also her pseudonym. Each album since 2008’s Krulle Bol to 2023’s Careful of Your Keepers shows a songwriter ever in the vanguard of her craft – This is the Kit’s music places companionship at a premium, so being welcomed into its space feels like privilege, on record and in performance with her stellar supporting cast of Rozi Plain (bass), Jamie Whitby-Coles (drums) and Neil Smith (guitar). Whether performing pared-back songs or complex, multi-layered compositions, their gigs are a joyful blend of warm, infectious melodies and gorgeous vocals, and St Canice’s is the perfect venue to experience their enthralling sound. Tickets for the concert at St Canice’s Cathedral on August 14 are on sale now priced €35. In today’s fast-paced mid-apocalyptic world everything can yield to despair and pointlessness. Continuing to be here at all, to stand tall and make music to gather to, that’s a heroic act. This is the Kit in concert is a joyful coming together.

Following TITK’s breakthrough 2015 album Bashed Out, featuring collaborators John Parish and Aaron Dessner, 2017’s Moonshine Freeze cemented the UK-born/Paris-resident Stables’ position as the rising star of contemporary folk. Her fifth album as This is the Kit Off Off On was written before the pandemic but captured the themes of resilience and restarting, homesickness, needing space, love and solitude.

Once again the Festival will join forces with the OPW to Light Up The Castle. Kilkenny Arts Festival in association with the OPW is delighted to announce the commission of a new short film specially created for KAF24 – a spectacle event for all the family from Fictions Picture Company and directed by Jack Phelan - Light Up the Castle: SIX SIDES SAWN.
Light Up the Castle, the spectacular audio-visual show projecting images onto the walls of Kilkenny Castle, has become one of the most eagerly anticipated events in the Festival calendar and this year promises to be an absolute showstopper.

To our modern eyes, Kilkenny Castle is still a marvel. In an age of sky-scrapers, electric cars and quantum computing we wouldn’t be able to build such a castle if we tried. It might as well have been a magical act. Light Up The Castle: SIX SIDES SAWN will take place on Wednesday 14, Thursday 15, Friday 16, and Saturday 17 August at 10:40pm. Admission is free.
2024’s Light Up The Castle event wants to celebrate the magic of castle construction, and if that can’t be done with construction itself, it’ll just have to be done with magic!

The full lineup for Kilkenny Arts Festival 2024 which will take place in venues across the city and county from August 8 to 18 will be announced in June.
For more see kilkennyarts.ie