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Sun Media Corporation is the owner of several tabloid and broadsheet newspapers in Canada and the 49 percent owner of Sun News Network. It is a subsidiary of Quebecor Media.

Sun Media publications[link]

This list is incomplete; you can help by expanding it.

Sun newspapers[link]

Vancouver Sun

• Calgary Sun
• Edmonton Sun
• Ottawa Sun
• Toronto Sun
• Winnipeg Sun

Le Journal newspapers[link]

• Le Journal de Montréal
• Le Journal de Québec
• Le Journal de Sherbrooke

Other newspapers[link]

• 24 Hours / 24 Heures
• Barrie Examiner
• Brockville Recorder and Times
• Crowsnest Pass Promoter (Crowsnest Pass, Alberta)
• Fort McMurray Today
• Grande Prairie Daily Herald-Tribune (Grande Prairie, Alberta)
• Daily Miner and News (Kenora, Ontario)
• London Free Press
• Ontario Farmer
• The Daily Graphic (Portage La Prairie, Manitoba)
• The Delhi News-Record
• Shoreline Beacon (Saugeen Shores, Ontario)
• Simcoe Reformer (Norfolk County, Ontario)
• The Beacon Herald
• St. Thomas Times-Journal
• Woodstock Sentinel-Review
• Sherwood Park - Strathcona County News
• The Peterborough Examiner
• Sault Star (Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario)
• Sarnia Observer
• Sudbury Star (Sudbury, Ontario)
• The Stonewall Argus & Teulon Times
• Timmins Daily Press
• Timmins Times
• Cornwall Standard Freeholder
• Dunnville Chronicle
• Spruce Grove Examiner
• Stony Plain Reporter

External links[link]

• Official Sun Media website
• Ottawa Sun: List of Sun Media newspapers

This article about a Canadian corporation or company is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Look up media in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Media may refer to:

Communications[link]

• Media (communication), tools used to store and deliver information or data
  • Advertising media, various media, content, buying and placement for advertising
  • Broadcast media, communications delivered over mass electronic communication networks
  • Digital media, electronic media used to store, transmit, and receive digitized information
  • Electronic media, communications delivered via electronic or electromechanical energy
  • Hypermedia, media with hyperlinks
  • Mass media, all means of mass communications
  • Multimedia, communications that incorporate multiple forms of information content and processing
  • New media, a broad term encompassing the amalgamation of traditional media with the interactive power of computer and communications technology
  • News media, mass media focused on communicating news
  • News media (United States), the news media of the United States of America
  • Print media, communications delivered via paper or canvas
  • Published media, any media made available to the public
  • Recording media, devices used to store information
  • Social media, media disseminated through social interaction
  • MEDIA Programme, a European Union initiative to support the European audiovisual sector

Computing[link]

• Media (computer), used in computer data storage devices
• Media player (application software), a piece of software designed to play audio and videos

Fine art[link]

• Media (arts), materials and techniques used by an artist to produce a work

History[link]

• Median Empire, an ancient Iranian kingdom of the Medians (Medes) in north-western Iran

Life sciences[link]

• Growth medium, objects in which microorganisms or cells can experience growth
• Media filter, a filter consisting of several different filter materials
• Tunica media, the middle layer of the wall of a blood vessel
• A group of insect wing veins in the Comstock-Needham system

Places[link]

• Media, Illinois
• Media, Pennsylvania

Music[link]

• Media (album), the 1998 album by The Faint

Mythology[link]

• Medea, the daughter of King Aeëtes of Colchis in Greek mythology

Ships[link]

• RMS Media, a Cunard Line cargo liner in service 1948-61

See also[link]

• Media ecology
• Media meshing
• Media psychology
• Media studies
• Medium (disambiguation)
• Multimedia learning
• Kaus Media, a star system in the constellation Sagittarius

This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the same title. If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change the link to point directly to the intended article.

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (October 2009)

Peter Worthington (born February 16, 1927) is a Canadian journalist. A foreign correspondent with the Toronto Telegram newspaper from 1956, Worthington was an eyewitness to the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald in 1963, and can be seen in photographs of the event. He remained with the Telegram until it folded in 1971. Worthington was the founding editor of the Toronto Sun newspaper, which was created by former Telegram employees upon that newspaper's demise.

Early life[link]

The son of Major-General F. F. Worthington, Peter Worthington is a veteran of both the Second World War and the Korean War. He joined the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve (RCNVR) in 1944 and served as an air gunner in the Fleet Air Arm until his discharge in 1946 with the rank of Sub-Lieutenant.

From there he went to the University of British Columbia. Worthington left the university before completing his degree and joined Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry as a Lieutenant in 1950.

In the Korean War he was a platoon commander, then battalion intelligence officer in the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry (PPCLI) in Korea, and ended the war with the U.S. Air Force, 6147 Mosquito Squadron, directing air strikes at enemy targets.

After his discharge, he returned to the University of British Columbia. He received a B.A. from the University of British Columbia and a bachelor's in journalism at Carleton University.[1].

Toronto Telegram[link]

In 1956 he joined the staff at the Toronto Telegram newspaper. One of early assignments was to cover the Canadian troops stationed in the Gaza Strip. Canadian forces were sent under the directions of the United Nations. From that beginning, he would go on to interview King Hussein of Jordan in 1958, Thomas Anthony Dooley III in 1959, and Albert Schweitzer in 1960.

In April 1961, Worthington was in Algiers, and on May 15, 1961 Worthington was in Luanda, Angola, covering the Portuguese Colonial War. In 1962 he was in Netherlands New Guinea, covering the invasion of the country by Indonesia. He was also in the North East frontier of India and China when Chinese forces invaded in that same year.

On assignment for the Telegram, Worthington was in Dallas on November 25, 1963, where he was an eyewitness to the killing of Lee Harvey Oswald. He covered the trial of Jack Ruby in February 1964.

Starting in January 1965, Worthington was posted in Moscow. In 1967 he was assigned to Cairo, where he covered the Six-Day War. On August 21, 1968 he was in Prague, Czechoslovakia.

Worthington covered the Nigerian Civil War of 1967 to 1970 in a series of reports that resulted in his second of four National Newspaper Awards and a National Newspaper Citation.

Editor of the Toronto Sun[link]

On Saturday September 18, 1971 the Telegram announced it was closing. Joining former employees of the Telegram, a new tabloid was started (the Toronto Sun newspaper), the first edition appearing Monday, November 1, 1971, a day after the last edition of the Telegram. Worthington was the new paper's founding editor-in-chief.

A conservative, Worthington led the brash new tabloid throughout the 1970s as it campaigned against the government of Pierre Trudeau. In 1978 he became the first Canadian journalist to be charged under the Official Secrets Act for a column in the Sun identifying 16 Canadians who had been recruited by the KGB into treasonous acts on behalf of the Soviet Union. After a year of preliminary hearings, the case was thrown out of court.

Following the 1981 police raid of gay bathhouses in Toronto, Worthington, in an editorial and again in an interview with CBC Radio's Sunday Morning threatened to publish the name of future found-ins.^[1]

Political career[link]

Worthington stepped down as editor of the Toronto Sun in order to enter politics in 1982. He sought the nomination of the Progressive Conservative Party for a by-election in Toronto's Broadview—Greenwood riding, but was defeated in a hotly-contested campaign in which the six candidates sold thousands of party memberships.

Worthington lost the nomination to Bill Fatsis, who was supported by the riding's large Greek-Canadian population. Worthington then ran as an independent candidate, and placed a strong second to the winner, New Democrat Lynn McDonald. He succeeded in becoming the official Progressive Conservative candidate for the riding in the 1984 general election, but was again defeated by McDonald.

Return to the Sun[link]

After resigning as Toronto Sun editor and taking a leave of absence for his political campaigns, Worthington returned as a columnist for the Toronto Sun and its sister newspapers. In 1989, he was fired by publisher Doug Creighton after being quoted in a rival newspaper saying that the Sun was not a serious newspaper. He was re-hired soon after to be founding editor of the Ottawa Sun for a year, when that paper was relaunched as a daily, and returned to the Toronto Sun and the Sun chain as a columnist. He continues today as a columnist for Sun Media's parent, QMI.

Political views[link]

Worthington is a committed conservative and anti-Communist. Less well known is his support for animal welfare and animal rights and long-time involvement with the Toronto Humane Society

Alleged FBI informant[link]

Worthington was accused by the Ottawa Citizen of being an informant for the American Federal Bureau of Investigation about the suspected political sympathies of a number of his friends, including June Callwood.^[2][3] Worthington filed a complaint against the Ottawa Citizen with the Ontario Press Council and won a categorical apology for its error.

In 1996 Worthington was inducted into the Canadian News Hall of Fame.^[4]

Family[link]

Worthington is married to Yvonne Crittenden and is stepfather of conservative writer Danielle Crittenden, wife of writer and political advisor David Frum.

References[link]

1. ^ Sunday Morning, documentary on the raids by Terrence McKenna including in interview with Worthington aired on February 15, 1981.
2. ^ "Writer feels 'betrayed' over name on FBI list" by Jane Armstrong and Dale Brazao, Toronto Star, page A22, September 28, 1989
3. ^ "Worthington was informant for FBI, documents reveal", Toronto Star, page A22, September 28, 1989
4. ^ http://www2.macleans.ca/tag/canadian-news-hall-of-fame/

Looking for Trouble, Peter Worthington, 1984, Key Porter Books

External links[link]

• Worthington reporting on the 1981 Toronto bathhouse raids

v t e   Editors-in-Chief of the ten largest Canadian newspapers Toronto Star Joseph E. Atkinson (1899-1948), Harry Comfort Hindmarsh (1948-1955), Beland Honderich (1955-1966), Peter Newman (1969–1971), Robert Nielsen (acting 1970s), Fred Kuntz (2006-2008), Giles Gherson (2004-2006), Michael Cooke (2009-present) The Globe and Mail George McCullagh (1936-1952), Oakley Dalgleish (1952-1963), R. Howard Webster 1963-1965, James L. Cooper (1965-1974), Richard S. Malone (1974-1978) Richard Doyle (1978-1983), Norman Webster (1983-1989), William Thorsell (1989-1999), Richard Addis (1999-2002), Edward Greenspon (2002-2009), John Stackhouse (2009-present) Le Journal de Montréal André Lecompte (1964-?), Paule Beaugrand-Champagne, Lyne Robitaille La Presse William-Edmond Blumhart, Guy Crevier (2001), Philippe Cantin, André Pratte (2001-present) Toronto Sun Peter Worthington (1971-1982), Barbara Amiel (1983-1985), John Downing (1985-1997), Lorrie Goldstein (1997-2005), Linda Williamson, Mike Strobel (1999-2001), Jim Jennings (2004-2006), Glenn Garnett (2007), Lou Clancy (2007-2009), James Wallace (acting 2009-present) National Post Kenneth Whyte (1998-2003), Matthew Fraser (2003-2005), Doug Kelly (2005-2010), Stephen Meurice (2010-present) The Vancouver Sun Neil Reynolds (2000-2003), Patricia Graham (2003-present) Montreal Gazette Norman Webster, Joan Fraser (1993-1996), Alan Allnutt (1996-2000), Andrew Phillips Ottawa Citizen Charles Herbert Mackintosh (1874-1892), Hugh Clark 1897-1898, Edward Whipple Bancroft Morrison (1898-1913), Keith Spicer (1985-1989), Gordon Fisher (1989-1991), James Travers (1991-1996), Neil Reynolds (1996-2000), Scott Keir Anderson (2000-2007), Gerry Nott (2009-present) Winnipeg Free Press William Fisher Luxton (1872-1893), Frederick Molyneux St. John (1893-1895), Arnott James Magurn (1898-1901), John Wesley Dafoe (1901-1944), George Victor Ferguson (1944-1946), Grant Dexter (1946-1954), Thomas Worrall Kent (1954-1959), Shane MacKay (1959-1967), Richard S. Malone (1967-1974), Peter McLintock (1974-1979), John Dafoe (1979-1993), Duncan McMonagle (1993-1996), Nicholas Hirst (1996-2005), Bob Cox (2005-2007), Margo Goodhand (2007-present)

Tarja Turunen
Background information
Birth name	Tarja Soile Susanna Turunen
Born	(1977-08-17) August 17, 1977 (age 34) Kitee, Finland
Genres	Symphonic rock, symphonic metal, classical, classical crossover, Lied, gothic metal; Operatic metal
Occupations	Singer-songwriter, musician, composer, Kammersängerin
Instruments	Vocals, piano
Years active	1996–present
Labels	Universal, Spinefarm, Nuclear Blast, Roadrunner, NEMS Enterprises, Drakkar Entertainment
Associated acts	Nightwish, Beto Vázquez Infinity, Noche Escandinava
Website	TarjaTurunen.com

Tarja Soile Susanna Turunen Cabuli (born August 17, 1977) is a Finnish singer-songwriter and composer. She is a full lyric soprano and has a vocal range of three octaves.^[1]

Turunen studied singing at Sibelius Academy and Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe. She is well known as a professional classical lied singer but best known as the former lead vocalist of the Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish, which she founded with Tuomas Holopainen and Erno Vuorinen in 1996. Their combination of hard and fast guitar riffs with Turunen's classical lead vocals quickly achieved critical and commercial popularity. Their symphonic metal style, soon dubbed "opera metal", inspired many other metal bands and singers.

Turunen was dismissed from the band on October 21, 2005 for personal reasons. She started her solo career in 2006 with the release of a Christmas album called Henkäys Ikuisuudesta. In 2007, Turunen released My Winter Storm, an album featuring various styles, including alternative rock and symphonic metal and started the Storm World Tour. Turunen released her third album, What Lies Beneath, in 2010. She performed several concerts in Europe, playing in metal festivals including the Graspop Metal Meeting and the Wacken Open Air, before starting the What Lies Beneath World Tour, scheduled to last until April 2012.

Life and career[link]

1977–1995: Early life[link]

Tarja Turunen was born in the small village of Puhos, near Kitee, Finland. She has an older brother, Timo, and a younger brother, Toni. Her mother Marjatta Turunen worked in the town administration, and her father Teuvo Turunen is a carpenter. Her talent for music was first noted when she sang the song "Enkeli taivaan" (the Finnish version of "From Heaven Above to Earth I Come") in the Kitee church hall at age three.^[2] She joined the church choir and started taking vocal lessons. At age six, she started playing piano.^[2]

At comprehensive school, Turunen performed as a singer for several projects. Her first piano teacher Kirsti Nortia-Holopainen remembered that "Tarja was in a school that had some very musical people. Even then she got to perform a lot. I think she sang in every school function there was."^[2] Her music teacher, Plamen Dimov, later explained that "If you gave Tarja just one note, she immediately got it. With the others, you'd have to practice three, four, five times".^[3] At school she had a tough time, since some girls bullied her because they envied her voice.^[2] To solve that problem, Dimov organized projects outside school. At fifteen, Turunen had her first major appearance as a soloist at a church concert in front of a thousand listeners.^[2] In 1993 she attended the Senior Secondary School of Art and Music in Savonlinna.^[4]

For several years Turunen performed various songs including soul music by Whitney Houston and Aretha Franklin.^[5] Later she listened to songs from the classical crossover singer Sarah Brightman, especially the song "The Phantom of the Opera", and decided to focus on that genre of music.^[3] At eighteen, she moved to Kuopio to study at the Sibelius Academy.^[6]

1996–2005: With Nightwish[link]

Turunen with Nightwish at the Himos Festival in Jämsä, Finland, on June 25, 2005

In December 1996, former classmate Tuomas Holopainen invited Turunen to join his new acoustic mood music project. She immediately agreed. At the recording session for the first demo Holopainen discovered that due to her classical singing lessons, Turunen's voice had become much more powerful than he recalled from their school days. At the following band practices, Emppu Vuorinen used an electric guitar instead of an acoustic guitar because he felt that it gave a better accompaniment to her voice.^[7] Holopainen later explained that the band members had gradually realised that Turunen's voice had become too dramatic for acoustic mood music, they came to the conclusion that the music had to be massive too. Hence Holopainen decided to form Nightwish as a metal band.^[8]

Nightwish recorded a second demo with "more bombastic, dramatic" songs in September 1997. Holopainen used this material to convince the Finnish label Spinefarm Records to publish the band's debut album, Angels Fall First.^[9] The success of the first album came as a surprise to the label.^[10] As the album hit the top 40 of the Finnish charts,^[11] Nightwish started their tour The First Tour of the Angels.^[12] That same year, Turunen performed at the Savonlinna Opera Festival for the first time, singing songs from Richard Wagner and Verdi.^[13]

Turunen with Nightwish in Kitee, Finland, on May 22, 2004

Due to her commitment to the band, Turunen was not able to concentrate sufficiently on her schoolwork and interrupted her academic studies.^[14] In 1998, Nightwish published their second album, Oceanborn. This album lacked the earlier elements of folk and ambient music, and instead focused on fast, melodic keyboard and guitar lines and Turunen's dramatic voice.^[15] In addition to the Oceanborn Europe Tour (1999), Turunen sang solo in Waltari's rock-themed ballet Evankeliumi (also known as Evangelicum) in several sold-out performances at the Finnish National Opera.^[16] In 2000 and 2001, Nightwish recorded Wishmaster and Over the Hills and Far Away and toured Europe and South America (the Wishmaster World Tour).^[17] During the Wishmaster World Tour, Turunen met the Argentine Marcelo Cabuli^[18] whom she married in 2003.

Turunen enrolled in 2000 at the German music university Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe to gain a professional qualification as a soloist with further specialization in art song. In addition to the good reputation of the university, Turunen chose to go to Karlsruhe because some people at the Finnish university did not take her seriously as a classical singer due to her commitment in a metal band.^[19][20] While there, she recorded vocals for Nightwish's 2002 album Century Child and for Beto Vázquez Infinity. As with the other albums, Holopainen wrote the pieces and sent Turunen the lyrics and a demo recording of the prerecorded instrumental tracks by mail. Using the demo, Turunen designed her vocal lines and the choral passages.^[20]

In 2002, Turunen toured South America, performing in the classical Lied concert Noche Escandinava (Scandinavian Night) to sold-out houses. Following this and an exhausting world tour in support of Century Child (the World Tour of the Century), Nightwish took a hiatus and Turunen returned to Karlsruhe to finish her studies. After the hiatus Nightwish recorded the album Once; it was released on May 10, 2004.^[21] The album has sold platinum in Finland and Germany and was the best selling album in all of Europe in July 2004.^[22] The band performed in the supporting Once Upon a Tour throughout 2004 and 2005.

For Christmas 2004, Turunen released her first solo single, titled "Yhden Enkelin Unelma" (One Angel's Dream), which sold gold in her native country of Finland. At Christmas 2005 it made a reentry at position one in the Finnish Charts.^[23] In spring 2005 she prepared the duet "Leaving You for Me", a collaboration with Martin Kesici, accompanied by a video.^[24]

2005: Breakup[link]

Turunen live during a Christmas concert in Lahti, Finland, on December 12, 2006

The first change in the line up of Nightwish was in September 2001, when bassist Sami Vänskä was fired because Holopainen was no longer able to continue working with him.^[25] In the following years the relationship between Holopainen and Turunen's husband and manager Marcelo Cabuli deteriorated. This had an impact on the relationship between Holopainen and Turunen as well. At a band meeting after the concert in Oberhausen in December 2004 Turunen announced to the band members that she wanted to leave the band, but agreed to record one more album and to participate in the subsequent tour, planned for 2006/2007.^[26] According to her husband, Turunen had further agreed not to make her decision public and to release her first solo album after the new studio album from Nightwish.^[27] After the last concert of the Once Upon a Tour on October 21, 2005 (which was released on video as End of an Era), Holopainen gave Turunen a letter signed by himself and the other band members informing her that the band did not want to work with her any more. The open letter was simultaneously published on the band's website.^[28] The media closely covered her very public separation from Nightwish, and due to references in the letter to diva-like behaviour and to greed, even Turunen's character became the subject of media discussions.^[29]

To you, unfortunately, business, money, and things that have nothing to do with those emotions have become much more important.

—Tuomas Holopainen in the open letter^[28]

Turunen responded through an open letter on her website and through some interviews in which she explained her view. She was upset that after nine years of working together, Holopainen had announced the separation via an open letter.^[29] Because of the continuing media interest, Marcelo Cabuli posted a message addressing the situation on the website in February 2006. He asked that anyone who had questions should email him. In June 2006, Cabuli posted a lengthy reply to many of the questions he had received. He answered questions related to the greed accusation by explaining that the band had agreed on the distribution of earnings in a contract at the formation of Nightwish. Based on that contract, every band member got a fixed share of 20% of the band's income.^[30] Marcelo Cabuli stated that, unlike others, Turunen had never fought for additional songwriter royalties.

For sure in her case, money is not coming first in her book of life. [...] If we would check which band member earns a lot more money than any other one in the band, you should be surprised.

—Marcelo Cabuli^[31]

Despite the circumstances of the separation, Holopainen's appreciation of Turunen as an artist remained. He explained that he did not search for a similarly trained singer as a successor for Turunen because he considers her to be extraordinarily good in her genre and therefore irreplaceable.^[32] Turunen said in an interview that she is very proud of her career with Nightwish. She considers the remaining band members extremely talented and wishes all the best for them and their subsequent lead singer Anette Olzon.^[33][34]

Between 1997 and 2005 she had toured the world with Nightwish, playing on all the continents except Africa and Antarctica.^[35] She performed live for more than 500,000 people.^[36]

2005–present: Independent career[link]

Turunen with her support band in Buenos Aires, Argentina, September 6, 2008

At the end of 2005, Turunen performed several classical concerts in Finland, Germany, Spain, and Romania.^[37] Since she expected to participate in another Nightwish album, several concerts and the release of her Christmas album Henkäys Ikuisuudesta (Finnish for "breath of eternity") were the only activities scheduled for 2006.^[38] Turunen again played at the Savonlinna Opera Festival in July 2006, this time as the main act; she sang alongside Finnish tenor Raimo Sirkiä, supported by the Kuopio Symphonic Orchestra. Turunen performed classical arias like "O mio babbino caro" by Puccini, "Libiamo ne' lieti calici" by Verdi and some songs from Andrew Lloyd Webber—"Don't Cry for Me Argentina" and "Phantom of the Opera"—among other songs.^[39][40] In November she performed at the charity concert “Tomorrow's Child” with the Tapiola Choir as a benefit for the UNICEF Children's Fund. On December 6, 2006, Turunen performed a big concert at the Sibelius Hall in Lahti, Finland; it was broadcast live by the Finnish channel YLE TV2 for 450,000 viewers.^[37] She was nominated for the Finnish Emma Award as Best Soloist of 2006.^[41] The following year, Turunen recorded vocals for the track "In The Picture" on the Nuclear Blast All-stars album Into the Light.

In August 2006 she started to work on her next solo album, My Winter Storm, the beginning of her main solo project. It was the first time that Turunen had written songs. She was supported by some professional songwriters. The choir and orchestral arrangements were written by film music composer James Dooley.^[42] Turunen released My Winter Storm, an album featuring various styles, including symphonic metal with classical “operatic” lead vocals, in November 2007. The album took the number one spot on the Finnish charts,^[43] and went platinum in Finland^[44] double platinum in Russia and gold in Germany.^[45][46]

Turunen live in Kavarna, Bulgaria, July 23, 2010

She was nominated for an Echo as best newcomer^[47] and an Emma for best Finnish artist.^[48] On November 25, 2007, Turunen embarked on the Storm World Tour to promote My Winter Storm. She performed 95 concerts throughout Europe, North and South America and ended the tour in October 2009 at the O2 Academy Islington in London.^[37] In December 2008, the EP The Seer was released in the UK and the new extended edition of My Winter Storm released on January 2, 2009.

She also contributed three songs to the Finnish charity Christmas album Maailman kauneimmat joululaulut (Finnish for "The World's Most Beautiful Christmas Songs") released on November 18, 2009. In December 2009 she recorded her vocal part for the song "The Good Die Young", a duet with Klaus Meine which is included on the final Scorpions album Sting in the Tail.^[49]

Turunen recorded her third album, What Lies Beneath, in 2009 and 2010; it was released on September 1, 2010. The album combined metal with classical “operatic” elements in an out of the box approach.^[50] She started the What Lies Beneath World Tour performing in several festivals, including the Wacken Open Air and the Graspop Metal Meeting, with special concerts at Miskolc Opera Festival and at the Masters of Rock, when she performed accompanied by a full orchestra. The tour is scheduled to last until April 2012. Also in 2010 she supported Alice Cooper on the German leg of his Theatre of Death Tour.^[51] On July 17, 2011, she sang again at the Savonlinna Opera Festival along with José Cura and accompanied by the Kuopio Symphony Orchestra.^[52]

Turunen with her support band at the Wacken Open Air, August 6, 2010

On February 27, 2012 during her What Lies Beneath World Tour concert in Brussels, Turunen announced that she will be working on a new album after completing the tour. During the concert she already presented 2 new songs.

Singing style[link]

Development[link]

Along with visiting the music school in Savonlinna, Turunen began serious classical vocal training at 17.^[4] After school, she began studying music (with a specialization in church music) at the Sibelius Academy.^[6] Due to her commitment with Nightwish, she had to interrupt her academic studies.

From 2001 to 2003 she studied at the music academy Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe, where she trained as a soloist with further specialization in art song.^[53] Turunen originally applied to train as a choir singer. At the audition she attracted the attention of professor Mitsuko Shirai, who encouraged Turunen to apply for soloist training.^[53]

As a classical singer, Turunen sings with classical vocal technique. She explained that in the early days of Nightwish, it was difficult to combine classical technique with the metal sound in a way that gave her liberty of action without damaging her vocal cords.^[54] Classical techniques helped her to play with her voice, so she decided not to pursue extra training in rock/pop singing.^[54]

Towards the turn of the millennium, the combination of hard and fast guitar riffs with classical female lead vocals attracted a great deal of attention in the metal scene. The new music style of Nightwish quickly achieved critical and commercial popularity;^{[55][56][57][29]} this symphonic metal style was soon dubbed "opera metal".^[29] Turunen does not see herself as an opera singer. She has sung excerpts from operas at the Savonlinna Opera Festival, but she stresses that singing opera cannot be performed as a side project. She would need special training to perfectly sing an entire opera without a microphone.^[58]

When asked how the association between the opera and metal genres may have arisen, Turunen said that despite the obvious differences, the two music styles have some similarities:

The scenes are very similar. There are many people who would never go to an opera and the same goes for metal. But the real fans are incredibly loyal. And both styles are bombastic and express strong emotions.

—Tarja Turunen, Metal Hammer interview, July 2002

From the first Nightwish album Angels Fall First (1997) on, critics described Turunen's vocals using adjectives such as angelic or valkyrian.^[55][59] The Valkyrie image was later fostered by the second video for the single "Sleeping Sun" in which Turunen walks on a battlefield as if she were guiding the dead warriors.^[60]

Turunen live in Buenos Aires, Argentina, May 26, 2009

On the following albums the singing was technically more complex. On the Nightwish album Oceanborn (1998), her classical vocal training was much more noticeable. For the song "Passion and the Opera", Turunen performed a staccato coloratura reminiscent of the aria "Hell's vengeance boils in my heart", sung by the soprano role Queen of the Night in Mozart's opera The Magic Flute.^[56] "Sleeping Sun" required a well trained breathing technique. Turunen explained in an interview that when they recorded Oceanborn, she had serious doubts, fearing that she was not yet advanced enough in her studies to have mastered the required techniques.^[61][62]

A challenge of a different kind was the cover version of Gary Moore's "Over the Hills and Far Away" (2001), as it required a deeper voice, far below the vocal range of an average soprano. In an interview with Breakout magazine, she reported that in the studio, the band members were shaken by a paroxysm of laughter as she tried to warm up for the vocal lines.^[63] As a side benefit of her efforts, Turunen gradually expanded her vocal range considerably into the lower range, which manifested even more on the following albums.

For the album Century Child (2002), she experimented with a more "rock" sounding voice, where she maintained the classical singing technique, but, for example, sang with less vibrato. Turunen was not satisifed that she had successfully transitioned to this new style until the album Once (2004).^[64]

I feel very comfortable with Once because I have tried to change my singing style with Nightwish already since Century Child because Tuomas requested that, the songs requested that ... It has been hard work and I didn’t manage to do that on Century Child, I was not very happy with it. On Once it’s all very natural, how I’m singing and what I’m singing. But as I said, it has been really hard work because I’ve been a classical singer for the last ten years so it was hard to start over again and think of different styles. Of course I’m always singing with my classical techniques, I never sing with my poor speaking voice – I cannot do that anymore.

—Tarja Turunen, Metal Temple interview, October 2004^[64]

This deeper "rock"-sounding voice on Once—as well as on the song "In the Picture" of the album Into the Light—was welcomed by critics as a refreshing change.^[65][66]

Her first solo album My Winter Storm (2007) contains rock and metal songs as well as songs that resemble classical songs. Turunen uses both her classical singing voice and a rock-sounding voice. In many songs she starts with a rock voice, and then switches for widely arching melodies into a distinctly classical singing voice.^[67]

Tarja's classically trained voice flies bravely over orchestral sounds and brute guitars. Like a phoenix from the ashes [...] she lifts up again and again for widely arching melodies, sometimes spurred on by multi-voiced woman choirs.

—Frank Rauscher, Teleschau – der Mediendienst, review of My Winter Storm^[67]

In an interview, she explained that My Winter Storm was the first album where she had the chance to use her full vocal range.^[68]

Now that I can use the whole range of my voice, it feels very nice. I have never sung so low as I did on one of the songs on the new record and there's a song on which I sang my highest notes ever! I really have used a huge range on this album – around three octaves – because the moods are changing in every song and this reflects that.

—Tarja Turunen, Kerrang! interview, September 2007^[68]

Register[link]

Vocal range on My Winter Storm (F₃ to D₆)

Turunen's voice type is soprano (more precisely, (full) lyric soprano). Over the course of her career, Turunen has developed a vocal range of three octaves.^[1] Therefore she is also capable of reaching the mezzo-soprano, contralto and even coloratura soprano register.

This is apparent on her album My Winter Storm, where the lowest note sung is F₃ in the song "The Seer", while in another song, she sang up to D₆.^[69]

I sang a repertoire of a mezzo-soprano for many years and because of that, still today, I have rarely quite low register for a lyrical soprano. Nowadays, I see myself as a light lyrical soprano.

—Tarja Turunen – blog entry from March 1, 2009^[58]

Reception[link]

Turunen at the International Book Fair in Buenos Aires, Argentina, May 3, 2007

Turunen's voice is described by critics as remarkably powerful and emotional.^[70][71][72] Sometimes it is stated that her voice is too trained or operatic for metal music, but even critics who do not like classical voices admit that her voice suits the kind of metal songs she sings unusually well.^[55][56]

Until the end of their collaboration, Turunen's singing was a trademark of Nightwish.^[65] She was known as the face and voice of Nightwish^[73] while bandleader Holopainen was the soul. Turunen was seen as a key to Nightwish's success.^[74] She is respected by other musicians of the metal genre and is an influence on their work; for instance, Simone Simons names her as her inspiration to study classical music and apply that vocal style to a metal band.^[75]

Turunen receives most of her media attention in her homeland of Finland. In December 2003, she was invited by Finnish president Tarja Halonen to celebrate the Finnish Independence Day at the Presidential Palace together with other Finnish celebrities.^[18] The event is televised annually live by the state-owned broadcaster, the Finnish Broadcasting Company.^[36] In December 2007, she performed different versions of the Finnish national anthem "Maamme" (Finnish: "Our country") accompanied by the Tapiola Sinfonietta, to celebrate the 90th anniversary of Finnish independence. The concert was televised by the Finnish Broadcasting Company for 2 million Finnish viewers.^[36] During her solo career, Turunen has sold over 86,000 certified records in Finland, which places her among the top 50 of best-selling female soloists.^[76]

In Europe, her popularity is mainly limited to the hard rock and metal scene. She had a broader exposure on November 30, 2007, when she was invited to open the farewell fight of Regina Halmich. Her performance of "I Walk Alone" was televised live by the German television station ZDF for 8.8 million viewers.^[77][78]

Discography[link]

Solo career[link]

• Henkäys Ikuisuudesta (2006)
• My Winter Storm (2007)
• What Lies Beneath (2010)
• TBA (2013)

Singles[link]

• You Would Have Loved This (2006)
• I Walk Alone (2007)
• Die Alive (2008)
• Enough (2009)
• Falling Awake (2010)
• I Feel Immortal (2010)
• Until My Last Breath (2010)
• Underneath (2011)

Eps[link]

• Yhden Enkelin Unelma (2004)
• The Seer (2008)

Side Projects[link]

• Tarja Turunen & Harus - In Concert - Live at Sibelius Hall (2011)
• Cameo role on Yhtä Kyytiä - Mad Rush (Partners in Crime) Movie (2011)
• TBA (2012)

With Nightwish[link]

• Angels Fall First (1997)
• Oceanborn (1998)
• Wishmaster (2000)
• Over the Hills and Far Away EP (2001)
• Century Child (2002)
• Once (2004)

Notes[link]

80.^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1949611/fullcredits#cast 81. ^ http://www.metalfromfinland.com/news/2009-07-20_16:34/tarja_turunen_posts_new_blog_terve

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Tarja Turunen

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Tarja Turunen

• Tarja's Official Website
• Tarja Turunen on Myspace
• Tarja Turunen, Interview: "Music Has Been My Driving Force" October 28, 2011