Tarja Turunen

Born on August 17, 1977, in Kitee, Finland, Tarja Soile Susanna Turunen first gained recognition as the soprano voice of the Finnish gothic and symphonic metal band Nightwish. Her classical vocal training began at the Sibelius Academy in Kuopio, where fellow student Tuomas Holopainen recruited her for the project that formally took the name Nightwish in 1996. While still active with Nightwish, Tarja maintained separate projects, among them a 1999 solo in a rock ballet, a 2002 South American tour, and the 2004 Christmas single “Yhden Enkelin Unelma” (“One Angel’s Dream”). In 2005 the remaining members publicly requested her departure through an open letter that cited both financial and personal reasons; the ensuing public exchange ended her tenure with the group and left her working solely as a solo artist. Following the split she made select live appearances and contributed to an album by her brother before recording her own debut. Issued in October 2007 on Spinefarm Records, that album was titled My Winter Storm. Work on a second solo record began in 2009, interrupted briefly by a duet with Scorpions vocalist Klaus Meine on the track “The Good Die Young,” which appeared on the band’s 2010 release Sting in the Tail. Later that same year What Lies Beneath reached stores; the ambitious fusion of classical and metal elements was promoted through extensive touring, including German dates supporting Alice Cooper. Colours in the Dark, her third studio album, arrived in 2013 and reached the Top Ten in the Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Poland, Russia, and the United Kingdom while charting in twelve countries altogether. That year she also guested on the Dutch band Within Temptation’s EP Paradise (What About Us?). Luna Park Ride, her third live album, was released in 2015 and captured a performance in Buenos Aires, Argentina. In March 2016 Tarja announced two forthcoming studio albums. The first, Brightest Void: The Prequel, appeared in June and featured guest contributions from Michael Monroe on the single “Your Heaven and Your Hell,” Chad Smith, and Within Temptation. She performed selections from both this record and its follow-up, The Shadow Self, during a summer tour; the latter album was released in August.