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12. 2. 2012

Tarja and her band are having a little break between the shows, which will continue on wednesday in Portugal. Read here what she wrote about last concerts.

8. 2. 2012

Beautiful pictures from the concert in Zagreb have been added to our gallery thanks to Matilda Rudec.

29. 1. 2012

Tarja updated her blog .

25. 1. 2012

Gallery is updated with pictures from wonderful concerts in Ljubljana and Zagreb ! Fanclub members can again receive high resolution pictures.

21. 1. 2012

In Tarja's concert in Zagreb, Croatian singer Ervin Baučić will join her on stage to sing with her "The Phantom of the Opera". You can listen to him singing "The Phantom" here .

20. 1. 2012

Gallery is updated with pictures from yesterday's amazing concert in Vienna. Fanclub members registered on our forum can recieve high resolution pics of their choice.

17. 1. 2012

Interview with Sergej Škofljanec, who will be the »phantom« at Tarja's concert in Ljubljana! Read what Sergej has to say about the new album of his band Requiem, creating music, and the duet with Tarja.

Check out Requiem songs Let it Hurt and All Night Long .

13. 1. 2012

Final WLB tour starts today! Tarja and the band have been rehearsing this week in Zlin (Czech Republic) and are ready to rock. Yesterday journalists joined them and made interviews, which you can find on our FB page.

Tarja also wrote a new blog in which she reveals that set lists will be different on every concert. Read it here . This tour will also be special because the first live rock DVD will be shot in Rosario (Argentina) in the beautiful Teatro El Círculo .

In our media section (video/audio) you can listen to what Tarja had to say about her Slovenian and Croatian fans at her last visit in 2009.

8. 1. 2012

As we wait for this year's shows, our gallery has been updated with photos taken by Matilda Rudec at the concert in Zagreb in 2009. Many thanks to Matilda for the pics!

6. 1. 2012

The concerts in Ljubljana (22. 1. 2012) and Zagreb (23. 1. 2012) are getting closer. All the concerts are once again camera friendly, so you can take a lot of pictures. The band that will rock the cities consists of:

Tarja Turunen - Voice

Mike Terrana - Drums (Masterplan, Savage Circus, ex Rage, ex Malmsteen)

Christian Kretschmar - Keyboards (Schiller)

Kevin Chown - Bass (ex Tony Mac Alpine, ex Tiles)

Alex Scholpp - Guitar (ex Farmer Boys)

Max Lilja - Cello (Hevein, ex Apocalyptica)

The support bands are Sylpheed and Scala Mercalli . Paranoid also announced that Sergej Škofljanec (Requiem) will join Tarja in Ljubljana as a special guest to sing the Phantom of the Opera! Besides the Phantom we will hear songs from Tarjas latest album What Lies Beneath, her first album My Winter Storm, a song or two from Nightwish and even some new songs from her forthcoming album!

3. 1. 2012

Gallery updated with pictures from the 2011 Christmas tour. Many thanks to Tosca for the pics.

29. 12. 2011

Beautiful pictures from this years Christmas concerts have been uploaded to our gallery. Thanks to Bernard and Harus.

23. 12. 2011

We wish you happy holidays and a pleasant step into the new year may it be full of good music!

20. 12. 2011

Welcome to Tarja Cro-Slo!

We are proud to announce the first Tarja Turunen fansite in Slovenia and Croatia. This site has been set up in collaboration between Tarja's Slovenian and Croatian fans in order to show support and help promote this talented artist in our area. We will keep you updated with news and other interesting things about Tarja. Join our forum and introduce yourself.

We hope you will enjoy this site.

Tarja

BIO

BIOGRAPHY

Tarja Soile Susanna Turunen Cabuli was born on 17 August 1977 in the village Puhos near Kitee in Finland. Her extraordinary musical talent was discovered at the age of three, when she sang the song Enkeli Taivan (the Finnish version of the song From Heaven Above to Earth I Come) in her hometown church. Soon she joined the church choir. At the age of six she started to attend piano lessons and at the age of fifteen lessons in solo singing.

Already in primary school Tarja took part in many projects. When she was fifteen, she first performed as a soloist at a church concert, which was attended by an audience of about a thousand. In 1993 she enrolled in the Senior Secondary School of Arts and Music in Savonlinna.

While she at first focused primarily on soul, and, among others, sang songs by Whitney Houston and Aretha Franklin, she later got enthusiastic about classical music. When she heard The Phantom of the Opera for the first time on cassette while driving down the road, it inspired her to the point that she started studying classical music. At eighteen she moved to Kuopio to study at the famous Sibelius academy of music.

In 1996, her former classmate Tuomas Holopainen invited her to participate in his acoustic music project. Recording the first demo, he noticed that Tarja's voice had become much more powerful than he knew it to be due to her classicla lessons. He decided to add a different flavour to his project and make it more metal-oriented – the band Nightwish was born.

In September 1997 their debut album Angels Fall First was released. To everyone's surprise, the album became a big success and made it to the top of the Finnish charts. Nightwish went on tour, the so-called First Tour of the Angels, and Tarja performed at the Savonlinna Opera Festival for the first time, singing songs by Wagner and Verdi. Since Nightwish required her full attention, Tarja could no longer focus on her studies and decided to take a temporary break from them.

The second Nightwish album, Oceanborn, was released in 1998. The release was of course followed by a tour. In the same year, Tarja performed as part of the rock ballet Evankeliumi in the Finnish national opera – several performances were sold out.

In 2000 Tarja enrolled in Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe, a German academy of music. The decision to do so wasn't based only on her good reputation. Because of her increasing popularity in Finland, Tarja thought that she wasn't being taken seriously as a classical singer in Finland's academies anymore. At the time she also recorded vocals for the third Nightwish album Century Child as well as for Infinity, a project of Beto Vazquez.

In 2002 Tarja toured South America with the classical lineup Noche Escandinava (Scandinavian Night), which was followed by the extensive (and exhausting) World Tour of the Century with Nightwish, and finally a break, in which she finalized her studies.

In 2003 she married the Argentinian businessman Marcelo Cabuli, whom she had met three years earlier while on tour with Nightwish in South America. As one of the most successful citizens of Finland, she was invited by the Finnish president Tarja Halonen to the annual celebration of Finnish independence in the president's palace. Tarja's dress was voted the most beautiful and Tarja herself was crowned the queen of the night.

After the break, Nightwish recorded and released their fifth album Once in 2004. The album made it to the top of the European Top 100 album charts. In the same year Tarja released her solo single Yhden Enkelin Unelma (One Angel's Dream), which went gold in Finland.

When touring with Once began, relationships within the band became strained (again). Already in December 2004 Tarja told the band in private that she would leave after the next album and tour. A surprise followed. On 21 October 2005, after the final concert of the tour Once upon a Tour in Helsinki's Hartwall Arena (which was recorded for a Live DVD and released under the title End of an Era), Holopainen handed a letter to Tarja, saying that the band no longer wishes to continue working with her. The letter's contents were simultaneously published on the band's official website. In the open letter,among other things, the band accused Tarja of behaving like a diva, not attending band practice, and blamed her husband Marcelo for the situation. To Tarja, who was after all a part of the band for nine successful years and in a sense even became its unofficial symbol, the letter came as a great disappointment. She has explained her view on the matter in numerous interviews.

Already in December 2005, Tarja performed classical concerts in Finland, Germany, Spain and Romania. In July of the following year, she once again stood on the stage of the Savonlinna Opera Festival, on the main stage this time around. In November 2006 she took part in the charity concert “Tomorrow’s Child” and a concert for Unicef. In December of the same year, she performed in Lahti’s Sibelius Hall – the concert was broadcast on the Finnish channel YLE TV2, where it had an udience of about 450,000 people. In 2006 Tarja was nominated for the Finnish EMMA Award in the category “best solo artist”.

She also recorded vocals for the song In the Picture, which was to be featured on the release marking the 20th anniversary of the record label Nuclear Blast, and started to work on her own solo album My Winter Storm.

My Winter Storm includes elements from symphonic metal as well as from classical music and film music. The album went to the top of the Finnish charts and Tarja was nominated for the German ECHO award in the category “best newcomer” as well as for the Finnish EMMA award. The release of the album in November 2007 was followed by a tour.

Tarja recorded her third album What Lies Beneath in 2010. The album was released in September 2010. As its forerunner My Winter Storm, What Lies Beneath also combines elements from metal and classical music, but is nevertheless different. This time Tarja handled the production on her own. She also described the difference with these words: “If those were the first steps, with What Lies Beneath I learned how to run.” She managed to convey her vision better. The sound is stronger, especially so the guitar sound, there are elements from classic rock and film music, and then there are some surprises, such as Turkish chant, twin drums, etc. The tour in support of What Lies Beneath started with various festival performances (e.g. Wacken, Graspop Metal Meeting) and is to end in the first half of 2012.

During the 2011 summer festival season, Tarja once again performed at the Savonlinna Opera Festival, this time with the famous Argentinian tenor José Cura. In September, Mike Terrana and Tarja prepared a special concert called Beauty and the Beat in Plovdiv, Bulgaria. They awed the audience together with a symphonic orchestra and choir. A tour is planned for 2013.

In November, before the start of the traditional Christmas tour, Tarja also recorded her first “proper” classical album. Meanwhile, she keeps busy with several side projects. With the ensemble Harus, she released a Live DVD from their 2009 Christmas concert in Lahti’s Sibelius Hall. In November she presented the electronic/chill-out song Outlanders at the Paulo Coelho day in one of Helsinki’s bookstores. Outlanders is also the name of Tarja’s side project with producer Torsten Stenzel. There may be other projects coming soon, which Tarja occasionally and very mysteriously alludes to. One thing is for sure – there is a lot to come. We may already look forward to many excellent concerts at the beginning of 2012.

FAQ

About Tarja

GENERAL

• Full name: Tarja Soile Susanna Turunen Cabuli

• Date and place of birth: 17. 8. 1977, Kitee, Finland

• Tarja has older brother Timo and younger brother Toni

• She married her manager Marcelo Cabuli in 2003

• Lives in Buenos Aires, Argentina

• Some of Tarja's favourite artists are Hans Zimmer, Peter Gabriel, Rammstein

• Tarja's favourite writer is Paulo Coelho

• Speaks Finnish, English and Spanish. She also understands German and knows

a couple of words in many languages since she likes to address her audience at concerts in their own language.

• Tarja likes cooking and cleaning. She loves red wine.

• She has a passion for scuba diving. She loves sharks but is afraid of spiders

• Enjoys sports and exercizes every day. She goes jogging, swimming and she practices yoga. She also tried herself at a bit of boxing in high-school

• Likes cars. She owns an old Fiat 500, which has been renovated a bit and has cool batmobile doors.

• Tarja enjoys shopping (shoes, clothes, bags)

MUSIC

• Singer, songwriter, composer

• Genres: symphonic metal, rock, classical music

• Lyrical soprano with a range of about three and a half octaves (from A2 to Eb6)

• Became famous worldwide as the singer of metal band Nightwish from 1996 to 2005

• Besides her Christmas album, she has released two solo albums; My Winter Storm

and What Lies Beneath

• Her projects include classical project Harus and Outlanders

• Plays the piano; can also play the flute and the organ a bit and hold a beat on the drums

• Tarja practices singing every day; her vocal teacher in Buenos Aires is the well-known opera singer Marta Blanco

BAND

© Fleur du Mal

TARJA'S BAND

C U R R E N T

CHRISTIAN KRETSCHMAR (keyboards)

Known for his work in the German electronic-ambient ensemble Schiller, Christian Kretschmar joined the band for the 2009 Final Storm tour and has been working with Tarja ever since. Also known as »the Kretschmeister« (Terrana-appointed knickname), he took part in the What Lies Beneath recording sessions, where he didn't handle only the keyboards and a couple of programming parts, but also played the hammond. In live settings, he has been known to provide backing vocals and play the cello during the acoustic set.

Other bands and projects:

Schiller

Links:

Official site

Facebook

MySpace

MAX LILJA (cello)

Previously of Apocalyptica fame, Max Lilja has been playing with Tarja since 2007, when the first warm-up tour in support of My Winter Storm kicked off. So far, he hasn't missed a tour yet. He recorded the cello parts for What Lies Beneath and enriches the band's live sound not only by overdubbing chords and adding flavour with his cello effects but also with a crazy solo or two. The occasional head-banging duel with Tarja on stage is a must.

Other bands and projects:

Hevein, HeadFake+One

Links:

Hevein

HeadFake+One

Facebook fanpage

ALEX SCHOLPP (guitars)

A member of the German band Farmer Boys, which has been more or less on hiatus since 2006, Alex Scholpp has worked with Tarja since 2007, when he recorded guitars for My Winter Storm. Of course, his riffing also made an appearance on What Lies Beneath, now amplified by the edgier sound of this record if compared to its forerunner. On stage, Alex, or »Big Al« (Terrana-appointed knickname), possesses a wild, incomparable energy and will even let you play some of the less demanding guitar parts if you happen to find yourself in the front row at one of the shows.

Other bands and projects:

The Help, Sinner, Tieflader

Links:

MIKE TERRANA (drums)

Mike Terrana, or the »Rhythm Beast«, has worked with a number of prominent artists, including Yngwie Malmsteen, and played in a variety of prominent bands (e.g. Rage). Since the first My Winter Storm tour in 2007, he has been playing with Tarja, live as well as in studio. He will make sure that you don't get bored during his drum solos. But drumming is not his only talent he claims that the microphone was on when he provided vocals for Poison live 2007-2010, his hair is awesome and should his excellent drumming skills ever forsake him, he could try himself at a career in comedy.

Other bands and projects:

Sinfonica, Axel Rudi Pell, Masterplan

Links:

DOUG WIMBISH (bass)

Doug Wimbish of the US band Living Colour boasts another long and rich career, having been part of the Sugar Hill Gang and recorded with the Rolling Stones, Madonna, Seal and Mos Def, to name but a few. He has been playing with Tarja since 2007, when he recorded bass for My Winter Storm. He also features on What Lies Beneath, sometimes in more than one bassline. At live shows, he has proven himself to be not just an extraordinary bass player, but also an excellent lead and backing vocalist.

Other bands and projects:

Living Colour, Eric Gales, Ms Lauryn Hill, HeadFake

Links:

KEVIN CHOWN (bass)

Kevin Chown previously played with Tony MacAlpine, Artension and won the"Soloist of the Year" award at the Montreaux-Detroit Jazz Festival in 1993. At present, he also plays in the Bombastic Meatbats featuring Chad Smith. He started touring with Tarja in autumn 2010, filling in for Doug Wimbish, when the first tour in support of What Lies Beneath started. On stage he also handles the duties of backing and lead vocalist. Kevin, a.k.a. »The Chownster« (says, again, Terrana) or »Bubbles« (say the Meatbats), quickly endeared himself to the fans and is possibly the only band member with his very own fanclub.

Other bands and projects:

Chad Smith's Bombastic Meatbats

Links:

Facebook

Fanclub

Bombastic Meatbats

JULIÁN BARRETT (guitars)

Julián Barret first started cooperating with Tarja in preparation for the recordings of What Lies Beneath, when he recorded some of the demos. Later, he also took part in the album recording sessions. He provided rhythm guitars for two songs and recorded an alternative solo for Falling Awake (the solo on the album version of the song being played by Joe Satriani, one of his guitar heroes). He accompanied Tarja on the 2011 South American tour in support of What Lies Beneath.

Other bands and projects:

Barilari, Asspera, Lörihen

Links:

P R E V I O U S

OLIVER HOLZWARTH (bass)

Oliver Holzwarth is well-known for playing with the metal band Blind Guardian. He also toured with Tarja a couple of times. The last tour he did was the summer festivals tour in 2010.

Links:

Holzwarth brothers

Blind Guardian

MARIA ILMONIEMI (keyboards)

Maria Ilmoniemi toured with Tarja from 2007 till 2009, then decided to devote her time to the band Husky Rescue and others.

Links:

Husky Rescue

KIKO LOUREIRO (guitars)

The guitar wizard of the Brazilian band Angra, Kiko Loureiro already played acousitc guitars on My Winter Storm and later accompanied Tarja on a couple of tours.