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music · Saturday 8 August 2026 · 8:00pm 
Bach: Organ and Piano at Kilkenny Arts Festival
At St. Canice's Cathedral · St. Canice's Cathedral, Kilkenny, Co. Kilkenny
At St. Canice's Cathedral · St. Canice's Cathedral, Kilkenny, Co. Kilkenny
James McVinnie brings a programme of Bach to St. Canice’s Cathedral on Saturday 8 August, weaving between piano and organ across an evening of roughly two hours. McVinnie last played this festival in 2015 - his all-Bach organ recital sold out - and this return has been a long time coming. The programme suits anyone who loves Bach but does not demand prior knowledge: the pieces range from the fleet, almost playful Italian Concerto to the big Prelude and Fugue in E flat that opens like a door onto something enormous. Classical music fans, organ enthusiasts, and anyone who simply wants to sit inside a medieval cathedral and hear something exceptional will find this a worthwhile evening.
McVinnie alternates between the cathedral’s pipe organ and a concert grand piano, a format that lets the two instruments answer each other across the programme. Works on the list include the French Suite No. 4 in E flat, the Sonata No. 4 in E minor on organ, the Concerto in the Italian Style, a pair of chorale-preludes from Clavier-Übung III, and preludes and fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier. The full programme runs approximately one hour fifty minutes, with an interval. St. Canice’s organ - a restored and augmented instrument with around 3,000 pipes, rebuilt in the early 2000s under the oversight of Professor Gerard Gillen - gives the organ works a presence you simply cannot replicate in a concert hall. The cathedral has been a centrepiece of Kilkenny Arts Festival since the festival’s first edition in 1974.
Kilkenny is well served from Dublin by train - the journey on the Dublin Heuston to Waterford line takes about 90 minutes, and Kilkenny MacDonagh station is roughly a 20-minute walk from St. Canice’s. Bus Eireann runs coaches from Dublin and Cork. By road, Kilkenny sits on the N10 off the M9 motorway; from Dublin the drive is around 120km. Street parking is available in the city centre, and there is a car park on Ormonde Road a short walk from the cathedral. The cathedral itself is at the north end of the city, near the Round Tower.
An evening concert like this pairs naturally with dinner in the city beforehand - Kilkenny has a good range of restaurants within easy walking distance of the cathedral. There is more to see in Kilkenny and across Co. Kilkenny.
Heading to St. Canice's Cathedral in Kilkenny? Kilkenny has plenty more to see. Read the Kilkenny area guide, find what else is on, and explore the towns and villages nearby.