Tarja Soile Susanna Turunen-Cabuli (born 17 August 1977), known professionally as Tarja Turunen or simply Tarja, is a Finnish heavy metal singer, best known as the former lead vocalist of Nightwish.
Turunen studied singing at Sibelius Academy and Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe. She is a professional classical lied singer with a three-octave vocal range, and founded symphonic metal band Nightwish with Tuomas Holopainen and Emppu Vuorinen in 1996. Their combination of hard and fast guitar riffs with Turunen's dramatic, "operatic" lead vocals quickly achieved critical and commercial popularity. Their symphonic metal style, soon dubbed "opera metal", inspired many other metal bands and performers.
On 1 November 2023, Tarja announced her third Christmas album, Dark Christmas, which was released on 10 November 2023.
Dark Christmas is the third classical and Christmas album, and the ninth studio album released by the Finnish soprano Tarja Turunen. It is the long-awaited sequel to her second Christmas album, From Spirits and Ghosts (Score for a Dark Christmas). The music was arranged and orchestrated by Tarja's frequent collaborators Jim Dooley and Tim Palmer.
The album is the first to include a special children's choir in each song, with the choir also including her own daughter, Naomi Cabuli Turunen. Naomi also plays the drums on some songs.
The album was announced to be specially mixed with immersive Dolby Atmos mixing, and it was announced that there would be pre-listening sessions in cinemas worldwide of the album. Each song was also announced to be receiving its own music video.
Tracklist:
1. The First Noel 3:18
2. Frosty the Snowman 3:07
3. O Holy Night 4:29
4. Dark Christmas 4:35
5. Jingle Bell Rock 3:52
6. White Christmas 3:43
7. All I Want for Christmas is You" 5:18
8. Wonderful Christmastime 5:31
9. Last Christmas 4:30
10. Jingle Bells 4:33
11. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer 4:19
12. Angels We Have Heard On High 4:41
/ XBTT (1) by Dejavu
