Stellar programme for this year’s Kilkenny Arts Festival

Kilkenny Arts Festival is back this year with another incredible lineup of visual arts, opera, theatre, literature, music and much more.

The programme launch took place at the Pembroke Hotel last Wednesday and chair of the board, Tom O’Toole welcomed everyone and thanked the hardworking festival team for creating another fantastic festival programme.

Festival director, Olga Barry said that this year’s programme has ‘some unmissable wow moments’, including a number of new world premieres.

Ms Barry also paid tribute to Helen Comerford who died earlier this year. Helen Comerford’s solo exhibition The Nineteen was a highlight of the festival in 2021, and following her unexpected death in Spring , 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.

Another great friend of the festival and talented artist, Ross Costigan will also be remembered and celebrated at this year’s festival. The Festival Gallery this year will be relocated to the Parade, with an exhibition of the photography of iconic Kilkenny photographer Ross Costigan who died in 2017.

Highlights of this year’s festival include Niall Vallely who will present 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 who were fortunate enough to witness 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. Kilkenny Arts Festival will also partner with KCAT Studio in Callan where Re-Connection will feature artists from eight international peer organisations in a group show including KCAT itself.

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