Picture by Paul Harries

Christa Titus at TheKillingWords.com recently caught up with ex-NIGHTWISH vocalist Tarja Turunen. Following is an excerpt from the interview:

TKW: You do concerts with classical pianists and other singers and you sing with symphonies, so you had already started to build your name as a solo performer, but was it more in the opera world that you were doing it?

Tarja: "Yes, I have been touring with kind of a classical lineup and on my own before. I have been touring in South America, but basically doing only classical music and also in Europe, so yes, people knew me in that direction already and of course they knew me from Nightwish. But in a way, now, with My Winter Storm album, it’s my music now for the first time.

Seriously speaking, I love classical music, that is one side of me, but that doesn’t tell the whole story about me and my interests in music. So yes, I have done things before. I have been performing in musicals. The variety of people that have listened to me, the ages of the people, of the circumstances or the places or the situations, they have been very different. I have been going through situations that I was performing in a rock festival the day before and then next day I was in a church concert . . . so I have [laughs] been kind of doing interesting things, but that has been the biggest challenge for me, which I really love that, that I can do that. I makes me healthy, it keeps me going."

TKW: What is it that you enjoy about opera, and what do you enjoy about doing rock?

Tarja: "They are so different situations, and of course, in both of them, music speaks, and that is for me also very important. The music touches me. I love that feeling and I love to flow with the feeling and emotions. So when I’m singing opera, I can be myself in a way that everything is going to be heard. There are no microphones, there are no amplifiers. There’s me and my voice . . . I love the difference when I go to rock concert or metal concert and performing there. It’s a show, there are many things that people can see and follow and yes, I can play around so much more with my voice. I can like, have so much fun. So, different situations. But they are very hard to compare. What is the thing that I really love most, or are there some similarities involved? Yeah, the music is, and the feeling is, and the performance itself in this case is, but, very, very different situations."

Go to this location for the complete interview.

As previously reported, Turunen recently issued the following update:

"In MyWinterStorm.com Video section you can find now the trailer from the Warm Up Concerts 2007 live video filmed last August 12th, 2007 in Kuusankoski, Finland.

The trailer is just an appetizer of the full video that will follow. We will soon let you know when and how to download it for free!

Enjoy!"

Turunen's tour schedule is now as follows:

May

7 - Live Music Hall - Cologne, Germany
9 - Wave Gothic Treffen Festival - Leipzig, Germany
11 - Hala Novesta - Zlin, Czech
12 - Klub Stodola - Warsaw, Poland
14 - Schlachthof - Wiesbaden, Germany
17 - Muffathalle - Munich, Germany
18 - Rohstofflager - Zurich, Switzerland
20 - Orpheum - Graz, Austria
21 - Alcatraz - Milan, Italy
23 - Filharmonie - Filderstadt, Germany
24 - Docks - Hamburg, Germany
27 - KB - Malmö, Sweden
28 - Rockefeller - Oslo, Norway
30 - Tragarn - Gothenburg, Sweden

June

1 - Tyrol - Stockholm, Sweden
3 - Tavastia - Hensinki, Finland