Kilkenny Arts Festival is on from the 8th till 18th of August, with tickets selling out fast! The festival, now in its 51st edition, promises an extraordinary week full of music, theatre and art performances, including literary discussions and more, meaning there’s really something for everyone!
Just some highlights of this year’s Programme 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 byJóhann Jóhannsson; presented with Chamber Choir Ireland and Crash Ensemble.
Light Up The Castle – 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.
Headline Concerts
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.
Theatre
Rough Magic will 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.
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.
Literature and Discussions
In Literature and discussions Martina Evans as poet in residence will 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.
Photography
The Festival Gallery this year relocated to the Parade, with an exhibition of the photography of iconic Kilkenny photographer Ros 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.
For the Kids
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!
For more on the programme, visit kilkennyarts.ie.
