The celebrated international conductor and violinist joins the Irish Chamber Orchestra for this magnificent programme featuring great works by Britten and Beethoven.
A stellar line-up of international and Irish artists to perform works by a thrillingly wide range of composers including Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Buckley, Britten, Elgar, Brahms and Pärt.
Classical Music
Afternoon Concert Series
Harriet MacKenzie , Jane Hackett (violin), Beth McNinch, Andreea Banciu (viola), Bill Butt, Grainne Hope (cello)
Musici Ireland - Brahms
Rough Magic returns to Kilkenny with a new show created especially for this most magical of settings.
Rough Magic
Rough Magic
Much Ado About Nothing Ireland
As night falls, those iconic walls will play host to a spectacular free light show.
Kilkenny Arts Festival in Partnership with the OPW
Light Up The Castle Ireland
Senegal’s Carlou D's powerful voice and deft guitar playing are wonders to behold, and, backed by a full band featuring acoustic guitars...
Carlou D Senegal
The groundbreaking string quintet performs two of the great albums of the 1990s: Björk’s Homogenic and Radiohead’s Kid A
Homogenic & Kid A
Wooden Elephant International
Adapted by John Morton, Medb Lambert and Donal Gallagher
Asylum Productions & Kilkenny Arts Festival with the support of the Abbey Theatre
The Big Chapel X Ireland
Silva works at the crossroads of movement and sound, forging a style both totally unique and utterly compelling.
Marble City Sessions
With Steve Cooney
Sandy Silva Canada
For this closing concert in the Marble City Sessions, Hayes and Cahill are joined by a line-up of outstanding musicians
Marble City Sessions
Martin Hayes & Dennis Cahill
Fintan O’Toole, journalist and author of the bestselling Heroic Failure, picks through the wreckage of Brexit.
Spoken Word
Fintan O'Toole
Heroic Failure Ireland
Join us at the Parade Tower to celebrate the publication of Kilkenny Arts Office’s Poetry Broadsheet 19.
Spoken Word
with Don Paterson and Jean O’Brien
Kilkenny Poetry Broadsheet Ireland
The Ivor Novello Award-winning and GRAMMY® Award-nominated legend comes to the Set
Richard Thompson UK
Based on an old Russian fable, The Soldier’s Tale tells the story of a soldier who trades his fiddle to the devil in return for untold wealth.
Classical Music
Spoken Word
Ciarán Hinds, Fews Ensemble, Emily Ayers
The Soldier’s Tale
The celebrated Irish pianist performs an eclectic programme featuring Mussorgsky’s Pictures at an Exhibition
Classical Music
Barry Douglas (piano)
This unique programme is a wonderful chance to hear the ‘best contralto in the world’ (BR Klassik) singing Bach’s timeless cantatas as you’ve never heard them before.
Classical Music
Nathalie Stutzmann (conductor, contralto), Leon Kosavic (bass)
Phoenix 55, Nathalie Stutzmann France / Croatia
The Irish Chamber Orchestra kicks the Chamber Music in the Afternoon series with this delightful programme featuring Elgar, Britten and Fennessy.
Classical Music
Afternoon Concert Series
Directed by Katherine Hunka (leader)
Irish Chamber Orchestra-Elgar, Britten
We’re delighted to welcome the exciting young chamber music ensemble Musici Ireland to the Festival for this pair of concerts in the Black Abbey.
Classical Music
Afternoon Concert Series
Roisin O'Grady (soprano), Sharon Carty (mezzo), Eamonn Mulhall (tenor), Helena Wood, Siun Milne, Beth McNinch, Bill Butt
Musici Ireland - Pärt
Two of Ireland’s most exciting young talents join forces in this mouthwatering programme spanning a century of music.
Classical Music
Afternoon Concert Series
Debussy, Ysaÿe, Franck
Patrick Rafter (violin), Michael McHale (piano) Ireland
One of Ireland’s leading classical pianists, celebrated for her monumental multi-concert performances of great piano cycles, explores the work of the Romantic composer and pianist, Clara Schumann.
Classical Music
Afternoon Concert Series
Clara Schumann
Fionnuala Moynihan (piano) Ireland
These concerts offer a rare opportunity to hear ‘the world’s leading period-instrument quartet’ performing at the height of its powers.
Quatuor Mosaïques
Classical Music
Afternoon Concert Series
Chamber Music in the Afternoon
Quatuor Mosaïques I
These concerts offer a rare opportunity to hear ‘the world’s leading period-instrument quartet’ performing at the height of its powers.
Quatuor Mosaïques
Classical Music
Afternoon Concert Series
Chamber Music in the Afternoon
Quatuor Mosaïques II
These concerts offer a rare opportunity to hear ‘the world’s leading period-instrument quartet’ performing at the height of its powers.
Quatuor Mosaïques
Classical Music
Afternoon Concert Series
Chamber Music in the Afternoon
Quatuor Mosaïques III
After its sold-out, late-night concerts exploring choral works through the ages, Chamber Choir Ireland returns to the Festival with a radical new approach.
Grete Pedersen (Conductor)
Chamber Choir Ireland
No Kilkenny Arts Festival would be complete without the world-renowned organist, Malcolm Proud.
Classical Music
Bach
Malcolm Proud (organ)
Cleft is a visceral story of one family’s unrelenting will to survive.
Rough Magic
Rough Magic and glór in association with Galway International Arts Festival and Kilkenny Arts Festival
Cleft Ireland
The first of two light shows at this year’s Festival is a multi-sensory spectacular taking place inside St Canice’s Cathedral.
Eat My Noise
fLux Ireland
This year we’re delighted to welcome back the exuberant duo with a brand new show, Balaklava Blues.
Mark and Marichka Marczyk
Balaklava Blues Ukraine
A collaboration showcasing two of Ireland's finest folk acts.
Double Bill
Sun Collective & I Have A Tribe Ireland
Famished combines Smyth’s lyrical poems with Bennett’s cinematic score and haunting vocal interventions from Kinsella.
Spoken Word
Cherry Smyth, Ed Bennett, Lauren Kinsella
Famished Ireland
The mighty Crash Ensemble returns to Kilkenny for a series of free pop-up concerts in the atmospheric courtyard of Rothe House.
Song of the Books
Crash Ensemble Ireland
The Quiet Music Ensemble is renowned for its innovative performances of experimental music, mixing improvisation with live electronics and recorded sounds
Deep Listening Sunday
Quiet Music Ensemble Ireland
The Festival is thrilled to present this exciting double bill featuring two up-and-coming Irish bands.
Rollercoaster Sessions
Sick Love with The Wha Ireland
'If you have yet to discover the melodies and words of David Keenan,’ wrote GoldenPlec, ‘you are in for a rare and wonderful find’.
Rollercoaster Sessions
David Keenan & Band Ireland
Don’t miss this chance to catch a genuinely original talent at the birth of this thrilling new project.
Rollercoaster Sessions
Song of Co-Aklan I & II
Cathal Coughlan Ireland
A musical celebration of the struggle for Civil Rights in Ireland and America
Marble City Sessions
A musical celebration of the struggle for Civil Rights in Ireland and America
Sounds Like Freedom
This exhibition maps out some possible futures that these young architects and planners of tomorrow have dreamed up for Callan.
The Big Chapel Project: Events
Re-imagining Callan for Project Ireland 2040
Notions
Over the Backyard Wall, Thomas Kilroy’s recent ‘memory book’, is a genre-bending mix of memoir and imagination.
The Big Chapel Project: Events
Thomas Kilroy joins opera director Patrick Mason
Over the Backyard Wall
How do you begin to adapt a novel, not for the stage, but for an entire town?
The Big Chapel Project: Events
in conversation
The Big Chapel
Free panel discussion
The Big Chapel Project: Events
Spoken Word
How art can influence our experience of spaces and places
Placemaker Ireland
A year-long monthly podcast exploring Thomas Kilroy’s novel chapter by chapter.
The Big Chapel Project: Events
With Etaoin Holahan
The Big Chapel Podcast
Rat King is a spoken-word black comedy exploring the lives of David and Chrissy, a pigeon-hearted duo clambering to make sense of their world.
Spoken Word
A rehearsed reading
Rat King
A group exhibition which explores how we interpret and inhabit space through a series of subtle sculptural interventions
Kilkenny Arts Office
The Encounter That Never Was
This exhibition brings together two radically different Kilkenny-based artists for a double ‘portrait’ of the county
Eamon Colman & Blaise Smith
Double Vision
Crowded Thresholds, curated by Fiona Mulholland, explores effects of the subconscious in the creation and response to objects of material culture
Curated by Fiona Mullholland
Crowded Thresholds
Arborist bring their entrancing brand of Americana to Cleere’s for an evening of low-fi acoustic songs filled with laidback melodies and washed with gorgeous strings.
Rollercoaster Sessions
Support by Patrick M Barrett
Arborist
Fogarty is a kind of anthropologist, a collector of stories and sounds lifted wholesale and tucked into the folds of his songs.
Rollercoaster Sessions
Seamus Fogarty Ireland
This unique event brings together two celebrated pairs of sisters from very different parts of the Irish tradition: Maighread and Tríona Ní Dhomhnaill and Louise and Michelle Mulcahy
Marble City Sessions
Louise & Michelle Mulcahy
Maighread & Triona Ni Dhomhnaill Ireland
Martin Hayes makes an eagerly awaited return to St Canice’s with his newest groundbreaking ensemble. This year the quarter is complemented by dancer Sandy Silva
Marble City Sessions
Martin Hayes Quartet Ireland USA
The bestselling author and Middle East correspondent explores the challenges of war reporting in the modern era
Spoken Word
The Hubert Butler Annual Lecture: Patrick Cockburn
Behind Enemy Lies: Reporting on Conflict in the Age of Fake News
Leading experts discuss the evolution of the exciting new Butler Gallery premises at Evans' Home
Spoken Word
Creating a Butler Gallery for the 21st Century
Transforming Evans’ Home
In this fascinating talk Amy Cutler, Eamon Coleman and Blaise Smith share thoughts on their own artistic process in the company of Butler Gallery Director Anna O’Sullivan.
Spoken Word
Amy Cutler, Eamon Colman & Blaise Smith
Behind the Canvas
Ahead of Alexander Gavrylyuk’s eagerly awaited performance in St Canice’s, composer and music teacher Gerry Murphy explores the story behind Mussorgsky’s most celebrated work.
Spoken Word
Gerry Murphy
Pictures at an Exhibition Ireland
To celebrate the 200th anniversary of her birth, Ian Fox explores the life and work of the woman who tragically renounced composition at the age of 36.
Spoken Word
Ian Fox
Clara Schumann: Her Life and Music Ireland
In 1324, Kilkenny heiress Alice Kyteler was accused of witchcraft by the Bishop of Ossory and her maidservant Petronelle was burned at the stake.
Spoken Word
Niamh Boyce Ireland
John Cummins has been writing for over 20 years and has been performing since early 2010 and is currently poet in residence at Bohemians Football Club.
Spoken Word
Rhyme Rag in Collaboration with Laureate Na nOg
We Are The Poets
Join traditional musicians Fiona Kelleher and Jim Murray for this enchanting concert for young children and their parents
Fiona Kelleher and Jim Murray
I am a Little Boat
A DJ Set for Kids with Donal Dineen
Donal Dineen
Tiny Dancer Ireland
FLY is a puppet theatre show for 5-to-10-year-olds and adults – a poetic journey into a circus world of strange characters, big emotions and captivating puppet imagery.
Teater Patrasket
Fly Denmark
Join us for a beautiful and optimistic story about a friendship waiting to grow.
M6 Theatre Company
Little Gift UK
Stormfest and Kilkenny Arts Festival are delighted again to collaborate in presenting a series of storytelling events.
Spoken Word
Pop-Up Storytelling
Every day, throughout the Festival, a range of artists offer pop-up performances in some of Kilkenny's loveliest spaces.
Secret Garden Music International
For this special event Ó Súilleabháin performs original compositions from his debut poetry collection, forthcoming from Many Rivers Press.
Spoken Word
Mícheál ‘Moley’ Ó Súilleabháin Ireland
One of Britain's leading poets makes a long-awaited return to Kilkenny
Spoken Word
Poet in Residence
Don Paterson UK
Don Paterson leads this workshop for poets. Participation is by application. Email info@poetryireland.iefor further details. Please note: places are strictly limited.
Spoken Word
with Don Paterson
Poetry Workshop UK
IFI LOCAL FILMS FOR LOCAL PEOPLE brings county-specific programmes of films from the IFI Irish Film Archive out of the vaults and back to the communities from whence they came.
Kilkenny Kaleidoscope
Local Films for Local People Ireland
The Butler Gallery is delighted to present the first exhibition in Ireland by the New York-based artist Amy Cutler.
Butler Gallery in association with Kilkenny Arts Festival
Amy Cutler: Colloquies
The experimental jazz-rock trio warms up for Sounds Like Freedom with this free Sofa Session gig
The Sofa Sessions
Harriet Tubman Trio
Masterclass in illustration techniques with Joe Caslin
Masterclass in illustration with Joe Caslin
Line + Narrative
A collaborative build using found materials and DIY architecture, inspired by Daithi Magners’ sculpture, with Sandra McAllister.
Sandra McAllister
Creative Construction in the Secret Garden
Drop-in to our peaceful secret garden retreat, to relax, contemplate or make.
Secret Garden Reflective Creative Space
Join curator Fiona Mulholland with exhibiting makers at 1pm, as they expand on the narratives in the show, followed by the Crowded Thresholds exhibition launch at 2pm.
with Fiona Mulholland
Crowded Thresholds Curator’s Tour & Launch
Bring a mat and join us in the Castle Yard.
Yoga with Essie Millie
Movement + Mindfulness
Led by visual artist Caroline Schofield, participants will observe the beautiful gardens, surroundings and the gallery itself.
Caroline Schofield
Visible // Invisible
Three workshops available for children aged 6-13 years. Only 1 workshop per child