Singer Tobin follows up on Cohen salute

Singer Tobin follows up on Cohen salute

Singer Christine Tobin, who appears at Glasgow Jazz Festival on Thursday, is already working on the follow-up to her salute to Leonard Cohen, A Thousand Kisses Deep, which received unanimous four- and five-star reviews when it was released in March. Tobin's previous album, Sailing To Byzantium, featured her musical settings of WB Yeats poems (and a cameo appearance by her former drama coach at school, Hollywood actor Gabriel Byrne) and she returns to Irish poetry for her new project with settings of Pulitzer Prize-winner Paul Muldoon's work.

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A different pitch on stage

World Cup 2014 is on television screens globally, but a different kind of live football takes centre-stage at Greenock's Beacon Arts Centre on Thursday when a touring dance-theatre piece reveals the journey made, off and on the pitch, by six Nigerian footballers who have been trafficked into Europe. Michael Essien I want to play as you... invites the audience into the tough world of limitless training, politics and contracts that awaits the group when, as 15-year-olds, they step off the plane from Africa.

Dynamic choreography draws on all the skills, physicality and stamina that have earned football the soubriquet of "the beautiful game" while also revealing the behind-scenes heartache of visa problems, duplicitous agents and the ever-present possibility the future could come crashing down if a tackle - or an immigration officer - sees them being sent off the playing field permanently. The Beacon has the only Scottish performance.

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Skipinnish issue album

Highland dance band Skipinnish launch their latest album, Western Ocean, at the Skipinnish Ceilidh House in Oban this Friday. The band, whose Atlantic Road was one of 2013's top-selling traditional music albums, recently enjoyed huge success when their single Walking On The Waves went straight to No 1 in the World Music download charts and was only knocked off the top position by the Brazilian World Cup anthem. The single was also ahead of One Direction, Ellie Goulding and DJ Avicii on the UK download chart at one point.

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Olympian art from Giblin

By Distinction Art gallery in Glasgow's Byres Road is marking the city's hosting of the Commonwealth Games by showing the work of body cast scupltor Louise Giblin.

Giblin's bronzes of British Olympians, including Kriss Akabusi, Sally Gunnell and Beth Tweddle were seen in London in 2012 and sales of limited editions of her pieces have since benefited the Headfirst brain injury charity. The Glasgow show opens on July 11 and also includes her Olympian-inspired bronze plaques.

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