Various venues, Kilkenny Until Aug 14th 056-7752175 kilkennyarts.ie

There’s a major early music focus at this year’s Kilkenny Arts Festival. The opening weekend brings a Bach solo cello suite (from William Butt at lunchtime on Saturday); a programme of Handel and Mondonville with the Resurgam choir and the Irish Baroque Orchestra under the leading French conductor and player Christopher Rousset (above, Saturday evening); a solo harpsichord recital by Rousset (Sunday lunchtime); and a Bach family programme from the EU Baroque Orchestra under Lars Ulrik Mortensen (Sunday evening). On Wednesday, German soprano Anja Lipfert and Camerata Kilkenny pair Telemann and Bach.

The Kilkenny Festival Choir, which made its debut last year, returns on Saturday week, with Fergus Sheil conducting Vaughan Williams's Serenade to Musicand Mozart's Requiem. August 12th is piano day, with the Capova sisters, Rebecca and Kirsten, offering a programme of duets at lunchtime, and Italian pianist Alessandro Taverno (a prizewinner at the 2009 Leeds Piano Competition) appearing in the evening.

There's also a violin and cello recital by Héloïse Geoghegan and Brian O'Kane (Monday lunchtime); string trios from the Amarilli Trio (Wednesday lunchtime); two late-night shows from Kaleidoscope Caravan (Wednesday and Thursday); an early music programme, How Happy for the Little Birds, headed by recorder player Laoise O'Brien (Thursday lunchtime); and piano trios from the Cashell Trio on the afternoon of Sunday 14th.