Looking back at her career, the words Tarja Turunen chooses to describe her climb to the top are “a turmoil” and “beautiful”. It’s the perfect way to sum up two decades of blissful highs and crushing lows. The singer was thrust into the limelight as the operatic vocalist of symphonic metallers Nightwish.
Their 2004 album, Once, turned them into superstars, but just a year later she was publicly sacked by the band in an open letter – a drama that rocked the metal scene. Since then, she’s built a successful solo career exploring metal and classical music, survived a stroke, and has just released the heaviest album of her career, Frisson Noir. Now she looks back on what life’s taught her.
