Former NIGHTWISH singer TARJA TURUNEN has issued the following update:

"Last weeks full of work and fun are happily over and I can relax a bit and enjoy the days before the Final Storm Tour is starting.

I have done some new Xmas recordings and filmed a video spot for it. I was very happy to perform in a Swedish Gala concert and my own Mäntyharju classical concert.

Everything went as expected or better!

The Christmas album, produced by Finnish famous Olli Ahvenlahti, is a charity project for missionary workers in Finland and it is going to be released in the beginning of November in Finland. I recorded three songs for the album and it was fun. Singing Xmas songs during summer time, was once again weird, but this time the studio was not prepared with Santa Claus pictures on the walls and I still managed without them.

The Swedish Gala concert was a funny and at the same time beautiful experience. It was broadcasted live so the rehearsals and preparations were intense. I needed to sing for the first time the song Myrskyluodon Maija; a song that every Finnish person knows. I hope I did honour it with my performance. I also performed The Reign, a song that I particularly love from my fist album. It was very touching to hear the great orchestra performing it. I am sure that I will do more concerts with orchestra in the near future.

I was just very delighted to receive an invitation for this important gala.

Mäntyharju concert went very fine as well and it was nice to see friends coming from really far to the amazingly beautiful church of Mäntyharju. I was very satisfied with the concert program and with the fact that I could perform some of my own compositions for the Finnish audience for the first time. People seemed to enjoy them. The hard work ended with success.

I have been also busy writing new songs for my forthcoming album. This time with Johnny Andrews. We wrote a song few months ago when I was in L.A. and now we did it again in Finland.

The biggest difference with MWS probably is that at that time, we recorded all the songs that I was happy with. And we had no leftovers! Everything went into the album, one way of another. But now, the feeling is a bit different. Having so much material to choose from is making things difficult… Is a new and nice challenge. Is quite hard to leave songs out of the album as all the songs have a special meaning to me.

While getting ready for a new tour, my thoughts are in the new album.

I want to thank everybody for the beautiful wishes, presents and surprises on my birthday. Many of you left regards in this blog or in the official forum in all the languages in my web page. I also received many lovely presents and saw lots of funny videos in you tube, so I am a very lucky girl to have such a great people like you supporting me on my journey in music and life.

And for all those that guess if I am really receiving the videos, presents and letters; yes I am. Even though the amount of them makes it barely impossible to answer you in person, be sure that I really enjoy them a lot.

Thank you all again! It is amazing to feel the love of you.

See you very soon in the last tour in Europe.

Rock!"

Check out more photos at this location.

Turunen recently has announced the members of her Final Storm touring band. They are as follows:

Mike Terrana - drums (MASTERPLAN, SAVAGE CIRCUS, ex-RAGE, ex-MALMSTEEN)

Christian Kretschmar - keyboards (SCHILLER)

Oliver Holzwarth - bass (BLIND GUARDIAN, ex-SIEGES EVEN)

Alex Scholpp - guitar (ex-FARMER BOYS)

Max Lilja - cello (HEVEIN, ex-APOCALYPTICA)

Confirmed dates of the 2009 Final Storm Tour are below:

December

4 - Lahti, Finland - Sibelius Hall
5 - Tampere, Finland - Kaleva Church
10 - Lappeenranta, Finland - The Church Of Maria
12 - Joensuu, Finland - The Church Of Joensuu
13 - Haapajärvi, Finland - The Church Of Haapajärvi
18 - Seinäjoki, Finland - The Church Of Lakeuden risti