A Nordic Symphony ‘18 – Tarja Turunen & Stratovarius Double Headline Tour

Needless to say that one can await big things when the queen of heavy rock, the brightest star of the symphonic rock scene and certainly the most internationally well-known Finnish female voice in the world of music Tarja Turunen and her band team up for a tour with one of the the most successful, enduring power metal bands in the world, who influenced a whole genre with heir distinguished mix of fast progressive metal and a melodic approach, symphonic metal originators Stratovarius.

Soprano, composer and songwriter, Tarja reached international fame co-founding and being for nine years the voice and image of the Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish, collecting with them Gold and Platinum Record Awards in several countries. Leading into a not less successful solo career starting of in 2005 when Tarja started to walk alone. Since then she dedicates every December in bringing to Finland and abroad the magic of her Christmas shows. Plus Tarja’s flawless ability to blend rock and classic lead to several collaborations i.e with Alice Cooper, Within Temptation, the German electronic artist Schiller, Doro Pesch and the British father of Tubular Bells Mike Oldfield.

But the unique synergy between Tarja’s classical and rock inspirations is fully expressed in her solo rock career. By now she released four multi-platinum and gold awarded albums “My Winter Storm” (2007), “What Lies Beneath” (2010) “Colours In The Dark” (2013) and the most recent ones “The Brightest Void” / “The Shadow Self” (2016). After the successful release of the unexpectedly dark album “From Spirits And Ghosts (Score For A Dark Christmas)“ (2017) and the following Christmas shows, Tarja is ready to offer a closure for her recent heavy rock albums, with her second live video and CD. Following the same line of its predecessor, “ACT II” will be released in summer 2018.

Not less important, if not even more, than albums and collaborations, has been for Tarja to perform live on stage in front of her audience with more than 800 shows worldwide during her career so far.

It has been more than 30 years since Stratovarius got together – what started in 1985 under the name Black Water left a trail of 16 studio albums, ten Top 5 chart positions in their native country Finland and more than 40 top chart positions around the globe as well as over 30 years extensive touring world wide. With their distinguished mix of fast progressive metal and a melodic approach, symphonic metal originators Stratovarius became one of the most influential, successful and enduring power metal bands in the world.

After a few bumpy steps and stones in the band’s line-up, Stratovarius song writing found its peak in their recent studio works “Elysium“, “Nemesis” and “Eternal”. All milestones in sound, creativity and songwriting. It happens rarely nowadays, especially in metal, that a band creates one magic song after the other. Stratovarius are surely one of the few exceptions.

Recently Stratovarius presented their long awaited “Best Of” album, which included 29 hits and fan favorites (and there could have been more!). As well as started a reissue campaign of all their 16 studio albums, with one of the band’s most successful and most loved albums “Destiny” (originally released in 1999) and the cult live album “Visions Of Europe” (originally released in 1998). The series will be continued in summer 2018 with the not less loved albums “Episode” (originally released in 1996) and “Visions” (originally released in 1997), again packed with rare and newly recorded bonus material.

Now these two major players from Finland decided to go on A Nordic Symphony ‘18 Tour together and not only who is aware of both acts history can hint that this will have some more exiting surprises than just outstanding extra ordinary shows by Tarja with her band and Stratovarius!

A Nordic Symphony ‘18 – routing:

01.10.2018 – Frankfurt – Batschkapp

02.10.2018 – Kiel –Max

03.10.2018 – Hannover – Capitol

05.10.2018 – Karlsruhe – Substage

07.10.2018 – Utrecht – TivoliVredenburg

09.10.2018 – Bochum – Matrix

10.10.2018 – Cologne – Essigfabrik

11.10.2018 – Saarbücken – Garage

13.10.2018 – Solothurn – Kopfmehl

14.10.2018 – Grenoble – La Belle Electrique

16.10.2018 – Rome – Orion

17.10.2018 – Milan – Alcatraz

18.10.2018 – Munich – Backstage

20.10.2018 – Innsbruck – Music Hall

21.10.2018 – Berlin – Festsaal Kreuzberg

24.10.2018 – Gdansk – B90

25.10.2018 – Krakow – Studio

26.10.2018 – Dresden – Reithalle

28.10.2018 – Budapest – Barba Negra

29.10.2018 – Sofia – Universiada Sports Hall