There's something for everyone as Kilkenny Arts Festival announces 2024 programme - tickets on sale now

The Kilkenny Arts Festival will launch its main summer programme at a launch event this evening (Wednesday) at the Pembroke Hotel.

It will feature a plethora of new projects and commissions, exquisite performances, new collaborations, intriguing installations and much, much more. The festival runs from August 8-18, and tickets are on sale now from kilkennyarts.ie.

Experimental composer Emma O’Halloran - Trade/Mary Motorhead PICTURE: MARIA BARANOVA

It’s a programme with unmissable wow moments in store with premieres from Irish National Opera’s production of Emma O’Halloran’s two newest operas; the Irish premiere of the much-missed Jóhann Jóhannsson’s Drone Mass, a new commission for Light Up the Castle from Jack Phelan; a series of Philip Glass’ music threaded throughout a monster programme of Irish and International artists featuring the new and the classic; a headline series with stellar folk and contemporary artists like Lisa O’Neill,  Mick Flannery Niamh Regan and Richard Dawson; the unmissable Marble City Sessions with Martin Hayes alongside a plethora of artist working on the edge of traditional, folk and contemporary music today.

With themes of resilience and home, The Dead House from Martin Beanz Warde, A Mother’s Voice from Beth McNinch, The Detached Project from Elaine McCague, What are you Afraid Of? from Peter Hanly, and Migration Sonatina with IMDT all speak to the intimate and self-interrogation; while poets Martina Evan and Paul Muldoon explore their long-form works where storytelling comes to the fore. 

Liane Lang explores landscape and change in a mixed-media exhibition at Butler Gallery, and exhibitions of two much-missed Kilkenny artists, Helen Comerford and Ross Costigan offer insights into their work. 

And with the ever-popular Secret Garden series, talks and literature including poets Martina Evans and Paul Muldoon, and more happenings to be announced, we invite audiences to be present for the unique moments that make Kilkenny Arts Festival so special.

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. As ever, audiences can expect some intriguing guest appearance and new collaborations within the series – kicking off with a concert featuring fiddlers and hardanger/viola d’amore players Aoife Ní Bhriain, Liz Knowles and Cleek Schrey with cellist Kate Ellis and viola da gamba player Liam Byrne in a special once-off gathering at St Canice’s Cathedral. 

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. Our partnership with Rollercoaster Records features headline concerts from Rozi Plain, David Murphy’s extraordinary project of Irish music for steel guitar, folk/contemporary sensation Niamh Regan and Kilkenny singer/songwriter Gary O’Neill. 

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 - part storytelling, it’s a monologue piece where Patrick, a member of the Traveller community, returns home for his grandfather’s burial following his self-exile from his community. 

Niall Vallely presents his unique project 78 Revolutions - a concept  grown out of his fascination with some of the earliest recordings of Irish traditional music. Composer and performer Vallely has assembled a stellar cast of musicians, Liz Knowles, Ryan Molloy, Mick McAuley, Kate Ellis and Mick O’Brien along with dancer Sibéal Davitt in a multimedia event directed by Tom Creed. 

Those that witnessed 2023’s Migration Sonata, which culminated in a dance work devised within a group of new residents to Ireland who had spent eight months in workshops building trust and a common story about migration, won’t want to miss the follow up project, Migration Sonatina.  With  John Scott and Irish Modern Dance Theatre returning for an intimate event which will be part conversation, part performance at the Parade Tower. 

Installations feature heavily at Kilkenny this summer, with A Mother’s Voice in residence with music from Linda and Irene Buckley and performances from Musici Ireland. This project devised by Beth McNinch deploys the voices of women from the Mother and Baby Homes.

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; Olivia O’Leary will this year present the Hubert Butler Essay Prize to essayists responding to the question of misinformation and reconciliation and Catherine Marshall from Na Cailleacha gives a lecture on the School of Hibernia project – a re-enactment of Raphael’s famous School of Athens at Trinity College earlier this year. 

Butler Gallery together with Kilkenny Arts Festival presents the German-born, London-based artist Liane Lang in an exhibition – Deep Time Dip - of mixed media that explores time and memory through monuments and historic landscape. Lang’s fragmented storytelling allows us to contemplate our actions in the landscape and how things are made and done as we prepare for cataclysmic changes globally. 

Helen Comerford’s solo exhibition The Nineteen was a highlight of the festival in 2021, and following her unexpected death in Spring this year, A Legacy - an exhibition of some of her sketches, drawings and studio notes - offers a first glimpse of the intimate practice of this wonderful artist at work. 

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. 

Barnstorm Theatre together with the Festival presents a series of theatre and storytelling works for children including Branar’s You’ll See a hit production of Ulysses for children! 

Booking open now online at kilkennyarts.ie  / by phone +353 56 775 2175 . From July 17, book in person at the Festival Box Office 76 John Street, Kilkenny,

Kilkenny Arts Festival is grateful for the continued support from funders, particularly its principal funder, the Arts Council; Kilkenny County Council and Fáilte Ireland.

Keep updated at kilkennyarts.ie  

Facebook / twitter: @KilkennyArts

Instagram / Youtube: KilkennyArtsFestival

#KAF24

OPERA

Irish National Opera

Trade/Motorhead

Composer: Emma O’Halloran

Libretto: Mark O’Halloran

Cast

Younger Man: Oisin O’ Dalaigh

Older Man: John Molloy

Mary Motorhead: Naomi Louisa O’Connell

Conductor: Elaine Kelly

Director: Tom Creed

Electronic Sound Designer Alex Dowling

Set Designer: Jim Findlay

Lighting Designer: Christopher Kuhl

Costume Designer: Montana Levi Blanco

Assistant Director: John King

Répétiteur: Aoife Moran

Irish National Opera Orchestra

Watergate Theatre: 

Chamber Choir Ireland PICTURE: RUTH MEDJBER

‘CLASSICAL’ and NEW MUSIC

Jóhann Jóhannsson: Drone Mass

Chamber Choir Ireland, Crash Ensemble, Paul Hillier, Conductor

Saturday 10th – St Canice’s Cathedral, 9:30PM

Chamber Choir Ireland, Paul Hillier Conductor

Sunday 11th  -St Canice’s Cathedral, 7:30PM

Romantic Music from Vienna

Schubert, Brahms, Ligeti

Crash Ensemble

Wednesday 14th - Parade Tower,7PM

Philip Glass – Glassworks

Irish Chamber Orchestra, Thomas Zeithetemair, Conductor

Thursday 15th : St. Canice’s Cathedral, 7:30PM

Programme: 

R Vaughn Williams: Fantasia on a theme by Thomas Tallis

Errollyn Wallen:  Dances (Irish Premiere)

Mozart: Symphony No. 40

RTÉ Concert Orchestra, Mari Samuelsen, violin

Sunday 18th -  St Canice’s Cathedral, 7:30PM

Bryce Dessner:  Song for Octave

Jóhann Jóhannsson: Cambridge 1963

Hania Rani: Glass

Nils Frahm: Hammers

Arvo Pärt: Fratres

Max Richter: Vivaldi – The Four Seasons Recomposed

Afternoon/Chamber Concerts

Carducci String Quartet  

Friday 9th –St John’s Priory – 1PM

 Shostakovich: No 8 in C minor 

Philip Glass: Quartet  No 2 – ‘Company’

Beethoven: Quartet No. 11 in F minor – Serioso’

Saturday 10th – St John’s Priory – 1PM

Mozart: Quartet No 17 in B flat – ‘The Hunt’

 Fanny Mendelssohn: String Quartet in E flat Major

Sunday 11th – Set Theatre, 9:30PM

 Programme: 

Osvaldo Golijov: Yiddishbbuk

Glass: String Quartet No 5

Steve Reich: Different Trains

Lavinia Meijer – Harp, The Glass Effect

Monday 12th – St John’s Priory, 1PM

Programme

Philip Glass: Opening; Études Nos 16 & 17; The Hours; Metamorphosis. 

Lavinia Meijer: Atmospheric Rivers; Tomorrowday

Caimin Gilmore, Kate Ellis 7 Lavinia Meijer

Monday 12th, Parade Tower, 6PM

Irish premiere of Gilmore’s BlackGate and new work from Amanda Freery

Finghin Collins – Piano

Tuesday 13th – St John’s Priory

Programme:

Chopin: Three Nocturnes, op.9

Schumann: Arabeske, op.8

Chopin: Four Mazurkas, op.17

Schumann: Palillons, op. 2

Chopin: Ballade No 4, op. 52

Finghin Collins & Máire Carroll – Piano

Wednesday 14th – St John’s Priory, 4PM

Ros Tapestry Suite: Commissioned by New Ross Piano Festival

John Kinsella, Elaine Agnew, Gerald Barry, Sebastian Adams, Gerry Murphy, Eric Sweeney, Linda Buckley, Sam Perkin, Deirdre Gribbin, Andrew Hamilton, Philip Martin, Gráinne Mulvey, Raymond Deane, Marian Ingoldsby, Garrett Sholdice. 

Máire Carroll – Piano

Thursday 15th -St John’s Priory, 1PM

Philip Glass: Étude Nos 12,1,2,10,5,6,16,4,15,20. 

Samson Tsoy & Pavel Kolesnikov - Piano

Friday 16th – St John’s Priory

11AM – Stravinsky: The Rite of Spring – 4 Hands

1PM – Bach: Goldberg Variations (Kolesnikov)

5PM – Beethoven: Three last Sonatas ((Tsoy)

Mari Samuelsen  -Violin;  with Julien Quentin - Piano

Saturday 17th – St John’s Priory, 3PM 

Arvo Pärt:  Spiegel im Spiegel

Philip Glass: Metamorphosis II

Philip Glass: Einstein on the Beach

Lera Auerbach: No 15 from 24 Preludes for Violin and Piano op 46

Max Richter: Berlin by Overnight

JS Bach: Chaconne (from Partita in D minor

Bryce Dessner: Ornament and Crime ( Ornament 2&3)

Mario Laghina: Coisas Da Terra

Max Richter: Mercy

Laoise O’Brien, Recorders, with Malcolm Proud - Harpsichord 

Sunday 18th St John’s Priory, 1PM

Telemann: Sonata in F Major

Couperin: Les Ondes

Handel: Sonata No 4 in A minor

Johann Christian Schickhardt: Sonata No 23 in F minor

Elisabeth-Claude Jacquet de La Guerre: Three pieces from Suite on D minor for Harpsichord

Benedetto Marcello: Ciacona op 2 No 12

THEATRE/STAGE/DANCE

The Dead House

Martin ‘Beanz’ Warde

Saturday 10th, 11th, 12th – Cleere’s Theatre, 8PM

Rough Magic

What Are you Afraid Of?

Peter Hanly

Directed by: Lynne Parker

Wednesday 14th, Watergate Theatre, 5:30PM

78 Revolutions

Niall Vallely

Directed by: Tom Creed

Featuring: Niall Vallely, Liz Knowles, Ryan Molloy, Mick McAuley, Kate Ellis, Mick O’Brien and Sibéal Davitt

Friday 16th, Watergate Theatre, 6PM

Migration Sonatina

Irish Modern Dance Theatre

Sunday 18th, Parade Tower, 2PM

INSTALLATION/PERFORMANCE

SIX SIDE SAWN

Factions, directed by Jack Phelan

In association with OPW

Wed 14th, Thurs 15th, Friday 16th, Sat 17th - Kilkenny Castle, 10:40PM

A MOTHER’S VOICE

Musici Ireland, Beth McNinch, Linda & Irene Buckley, Eoin McNinch, Bridget Ní Dhuinn, Eabha Bortollozo, Jack Kirwan

Shee Alms House

Tuesday 13th, 2PM & 5PM; Wed 14th, 12PM, 3PM & 6PM

THE DETACHED PROJECT

Elaine McCague, with Olga Kuzmenko, Hazel McCague

Secret Location: 

Tuesday 13th-  Saturday 18th – 1pm-6PM

MARBLE CITY SESSIONS

Aoife Ní Bhriain & Liam Byrne

The Harmonic Labyrinth

Sunday 11th, Parade Tower, 6:30PM

OBELISK STRINGS & CORMAC BEGLEY

Double Headline Concert:

Obelisk Strings:Aoife Ní Bhrian, Liz Knowles, Cleek Schrey, Liam Byrne & Kate Ellis

Tuesday 13th, St Canice’s Cathedral, 7PM

Mick McAuley (accordions, guitar)  & John Doyle (guitar) -with special guests

Wednesday 14th, Set Theatre, 9:30PM

Aoife Ní Bhriain (fiddle, hardanger) & Catrin Finch (harp)

Thursday 15th, Parade Tower, 2:30PM

Appalachian String Trio

Cleek Schrey, Joseph Decosimo, Luke Richardson

Thursday 15th, Cleere’s Theatre, 9:30PM

Niall Vallely (concertina) Liz Knowles (Viola d’amore) Niwel Tsumbu (guitar/vocals)

Thursday 15th, Set Theatre, 7:30PM

MARTIN HAYES – MCS Finale

With Cleek Schrey, Liz Knowles, Mick McAuley, John Doyle, Kate Ellis and more

Saturday 17th, St Canice’s Cathedral, 7:30PM

ROLLERCOASTER SESSIONS

Gary Murphy – Explorations in Irish Music for Pedal Steel Guitar

Cleere’s Theatre, Friday 9th, 5PM & 8PM

Niamh Regan

Set Theatre, Monday 12th, 9:30PM

Rozi Plain

Cleere’s Theatre, Tuesday 13th, 9:30PM

Gary O’Neil

Cleere’s Theatre, Saturday 17th, 6PM

HEADLINE MUSIC

Bassekou Kouyate & Ngoni Ba

Set Theatre, Saturday 10th, 7:30PM

This is the Kit

St Canice’s Cathedral, Wednesday 14th, 8PM

Lisa O’Neill

St. Canice’s Cathedral, Friday 16th, 7:30PM

Mick Flannery

Set Theatre, Friday 16th, 9:30PM

Richard Dawson

Set Theatre, Saturday 17th, 9:30PM

VISUAL ART

Liane Lang – Deep Time Dip

Butler Gallery, Saturday 10th  - September

Helen Comerford – A Legacy

Jerpoint Studio, August 2nd – August 31st

FESTIVAL GALLERY – Ross Costigan, photography

The Parade (Old KBC Bank) – August 9th – 18th

KCAT Studio – Re-Connection

KCAT Studio, Callan, Thursday 8th – August 31st

LITERATURE/TALKS

Poet in residence: Martin Evans

Saturday 17th, Parade Tower, 6PM

Paul Muldoon

Launch of Custom of the Coast

Thursday 15th, Parade Tower, 6PM

Reading from new collection Joy In Service on Rue Tagore

Friday 16th, Parade Tower, 6PM

Poetry Ireland Review

Saturday 17th, Parade Tower, 1PM

Kilkenny Poetry Broadsheet

Friday 16th, Parade Tower, 1PM 

Hubert Butler Lecture

Fintan O’Toole – Culture Wars – Art and Politics in the Age of Trump

Sunday 11th, St Canice’s Cathedral, 5PM

Hubert Butler Essay Prize

Tuesday 13th, Parade Tower, 5PM

Catherine Marshall – The School of Hibernia

Saturday 10th, Parade Tower, 5PM

CHILDREN & FAMILY

StormFest  with Barnstorm Theatre

Brú Theatre – The Libravian

Home

Julie Sharkey – An Ant Called Amy

Branar Theatre – You’ll See

From Saturday 10th to Friday 16th

WORKSHOPS 

Ta Ta Tum!

Pstryk!

Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th – 11AM & 2PM

SECRET GARDEN MUSIC

Daily, 3pm and 4pm at various locations  - artists unannounced

Booking is open now online , by phone 056-775 2175, and from the box office on John Street from July 17.