THE National Youth Choir of Scotland (NYCOS) has announced it is opening applications to its three national choirs.

These are the National Youth Choir of Scotland, the NYCOS National Boys Choir and NYCOS National Girls Choir.

This year has seen NYCOS in residency at the Edinburgh International Festival as part of the Year of Young People.

The National Youth Choir of Scotland performed at the Opening Concert in Haydn’s The Creation and its own performance at the Usher Hall, for which the singers were awarded with a Herald Angel Award.

This autumn the National Youth Choir of Scotland will continue its 2018 season in a tour to the USA, where the choir has been invited to perform Berlioz Lélio in the iconic Carnegie Hall in New York City under Sir John Eliot Gardner and his Orchestre Révolutionnaire et Romantique.

Christopher Bell, its artistic director, said: “I’m keen to hear young people enthusiastic about singing who would like to pursue their passion to the highest level by auditioning for one of our national choirs.

"Young singers often ask if they’re good enough.

"My reply is always that if you have a nice voice, are enthusiastic and committed, and willing to work hard, you too can sing for Scotland."

Each NYCOS National Choir is granted, by audition, to those born, resident or studying in Scotland, or of Scottish descent.

www.nycos.org.uk/joinus

THE Black Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi is to make two solo appearances in Scotland as part of a spoken word tour.

The shows, entitled 'A Life in Music' will see the seminal guitarist interviewed each night in front of a live audience by rock

writer and broadcaster Phil Alexander.

The shows will trace his early years in Aston, Birmingham, overcoming illness and injury to help create the metal genre of music in his 40 years with Black Sabbath.

He will be appearing at Paisley Town Hall as part of the annual Spree Festival on October 12, followed by a night at the Edinburgh Assembly Rooms on October 13.

Iommi formed Black Sabbath in the late 1960s with childhood friends Geezer Butler, Bill Ward and John 'Ozzy' Osbourne.

The band would go on to sell over 100m records and helped define the metal genre.

Alexander made his name as editor for magazines such as Kerrang! and was editor-in-chief of Mojo Magazine until 2017.

www.synergyconcerts.com

A NEW exhibition in Edinburgh will change the images of eight people into 56 others.

Eyes I Dare Not Meet in Dreams is to run from 5-19 October at the Roots Gallery, below the Forest Cafe in Edinburgh.

Over several months, artist Theodore Koterwas has photographed people who frequent the Forest Cafe.

He will now project the images life-sized in a video, and "using a perceptual phenomenon known as change blindness, he swaps out details until each person is transformed into another without the viewer noticing."

Koterwas said: “We believe we see others, that we recognise their unique physical traits and their personality expressed through their appearance.

"But our minds don’t work that way. If we can look at people and barely notice them change into others right before our eyes, what does that say about how we really see them?”

Koterwas has a MFA from the San Francisco Art Institute with a focus on installation and media art.

At the Exploratorium in San Francisco from 2000-2006 he collaborated with scientists to create digital installations exploring the science of perception.

Moving to Edinburgh in 2006 he performed as experimental music act The Foundling Wheel.

Since then he has developed work for the University of Oxford.

www.theforest.org.uk