l As well as its annual pitch to lure more people from Glasgow to the east to experience its riches, the Edinburgh International Festival is also keen to recruit participants.

Edinburgh Festival Chorus, which was founded in 1965, has been taking an increasingly audible role in the programmes of recent years, under chorus master Christopher Bell. The choir is always on the hunt for new members and will be holding auditions in Glasgow on January 28 and January 31. Sopranos to basses, all are welcome. To find out more contact chorus manager Helen MacLeod on 0131 472 2027 or helen.macleod@eif.co.uk. Visit www.eif.co.uk/about-festival/edinburgh-festival-chorus

l Hamell on Trial, aka Ed Hamell from upstate New York, has a new EP out, ahead of his Celtic Connections appearance at Oran Mor on January 23. Ed Hamell Is The Happiest Man In The World is on New West Records and features contributions from Ani Di Franco, to whose Righteous Babe Records he was previously signed, and Kimya Dawson of Moldy Peaches. His 2007 Edinburgh Fringe show, The Terrorism of Everyday Life, won him a Bank of Scotland Herald Angel award that year. Next week's date is part of the Kings of Antifolk Tour with Lach, but Hamell on Trial is also working a up a new solo show, Eddie's Bar. Fringe 2013 perhaps?

www.hamelltv.com

l It was a mass meeting of artists at Tramway that sealed the fate of senior figures at Creative Scotland, after which The Herald's theatre critic Neil Cooper suggested Orange Juice's Rip It Up (and start again) might be a suitable theme for the way forward. By extraordinary coincidence, Tramway has a season of new work called Rip It Up, beginning on Friday and Saturday with Leen Dewilde and Su-a Lee's A string section, which combines cello music with five female performers, five chairs and some saws. Future attractions include The Good, the God and the Guillotine from Proto-type Theater, combining music and live animation and inspired by Albert Camus's L'Etranger and, in March, a new show, figment, from the ever-excellent, Herald Angel-winning, resident youth company, Junction 25.