My winter storm

My winter storm
Studio album by Tarja Turunen
Publication (s)	2007
Label (s)	Vertigo Records / Universal Records
Format (s)	CD
Genre (s)	Symphonic Rock Symphonic Metal
Title (number)	21st
running time	75 min 16 s
occupation	Singing: Tarja Turunen Guitar: Kiko Loureiro Electric guitar: Alex Scholpp Bass: Doug Wimbish Drums: Earl Harvin Piano: Izumi Kawakatsu Keyboard: Torsten Stenzel Violin: Lili Haydn Cello: Martin Tillmann Choir and Orchestra: Czech Film Orchestra and Choir Composer (choir and orchestra arrangements): James Dooley Conductor (choir): Jan Brych Conductor (orchestra): Jiří Kubík
production	Daniel Presley
Studio (s)	Finnvox Studios , Helsinki , Finland Petrax Studios, Hollola , Finland The Village, Los Angeles , USA Grouse Lodge, Ireland
chronology Henkäys Ikuisuudesta (2006) My winter storm What Lies Beneath (2010)
Single releases October 26, 2007 I walk alone March 7, 2008 The Alive

My Winter Storm is Tarja Turunen's second album and the first after the singer split from Nightwish . The name of the album My Winter Storm is taken from the chorus of the track I Walk Alone and, according to the artist, refers to her fans who supported her during the difficult time of the separation from Nightwish. Since the previous Christmas solo album Henkäys Ikuisuudesta was produced during her time as a singer with Nightwish, My Winter Storm is often referred to as Tarja Turunen's debut album in the press .

History of origin

The first demo recordings of the album were completed on May 23, 2007 in Buenos Aires . The songs on the album were created in collaboration with several songwriters . Angela Heldmann, Anders Wollbeck, Mattias Lindblom, Kiko Masbaum, Michelle Leonard , Torsten Stenzel, Adrian Zagoritis and Kiko Loureiro were involved in the lyrics and arrangements of the album. Turunen took part in the songwriting process for 9 of the 14 tracks, but only wrote the Oasis track entirely himself.

The recordings took place in various recording studios in the USA , Finland , Ibiza and Ireland . In October 2007 the admission process was completed.

It was released on November 19, 2007 and is available as a simple CD edition and with an additional DVD.

The cover shows the singer in the snowdrift in a winter landscape.

In January 2009, a fan edition of My Winter Storm was released as a double CD containing three more songs. In addition to the piece Enough , the piece The Seer , which has not yet been published in Germany, is included both in the version published in Great Britain and in the form of a duet by Tarja Turunen with Doro Pesch . An interpretation of the piece Wisdom of Wind is also included. This was followed by Jeff Rona and Lisa Gerrard for the Olympic regatta in Beijing written. Turunen was originally supposed to sing the piece, but she had to refuse because her tour didn't allow time for it. Nevertheless, she liked the piece so much that she had reserved it for the fan edition.

style

Musically, the work moves roughly between three directions: the music most recently produced with Nightwish, classical symphonic and orchestral influences reminiscent of film music , and experimental sounds that cannot be assigned to any genre. Overall, solemn ballads predominate. The spectrum also extends to hard Power Metal . Most of all, the album focuses on the singer's voice.

success

The album reached gold status in Turunen's homeland Finland within one day , 15,000 units of the album were sold on the day of release. Overall, the album achieved platinum status in Finland . The album also achieved gold status in Russia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Switzerland and Germany. In Germany, the album My Winter Storm reached number 3 and the single I Walk Alone number 16 in the charts. The second single Die Alive reached the top 100 of the German single charts at number 76. In total, the album sold well over 500,000 copies, making it Turunen's most successful.

Track list

Chart positions Explanation of the data

Albums

My winter storm   DE 3 11/30/2007 (13 weeks)   AT 11 11/30/2007 (4 weeks)   CH 15th 12/02/2007 (9 weeks)   FI 1 47/2007 (9 weeks)

Singles

I walk alone   DE 16 11/12/2007 (9 weeks)   AT 37 11/09/2007 (5 weeks)   CH 49 11/11/2007 (3 weeks)   FI 6th 45/2007 (4 weeks) The Alive   DE 76 March 24, 2008 (2 weeks)

1. Ite, Missa Est - 0:27
2. I Walk Alone - 3:53
3. Lost Northern Star - 4:22
4. Seeking for the Reign - 0:58
5. The Reign - 4:07
6. The Escape of the Doll - 0:32
7. My Little Phoenix - 4:01
8. Boy and the Ghost - 4:36
9. Sing for me - 4:16
10. Oasis - 5:10
11. Poison - 4:01
12. Our Great Divide - 5:05
13. Sunset - 0:36
14. Damned and Divine - 4:19
15. The Alive - 4:05
16. Minor Heaven - 3:53
17. Ciaran's Well - 3:39
18. Calling Grace - 2:46
19. Damned Vampires And Gothic Divine (Bonus)
20. I Walk Alone (Artist Version) (Bonus)
21. I Walk Alone ( In Extremo Remix) (Bonus)

Songs

Ite Missa Est (“Go there in peace”) is an instrumental prelude to the song “I Walk Alone”, borrowed from the Mozart Requiem.

Lost Northern Star was written in Ibiza with Michelle Leonard and Kiko Masbaum. With the hard riffs and the “operatic” vocals, the song should form a counterpoint to the more classic pieces on the album. As a tribute to Rammstein , Turunen sang the line “my soul burns”.

Sing for Me was the last song written for the album. Turunen particularly liked the song because of the eerie atmosphere due to the orchestra and choir arrangements.

Boy and the Ghost is very similar to Sing for Me . The melody is carried by piano, drums and bass, but is sometimes accompanied by an orchestra. Turunen's singing is accompanied by its own vocals and choir passages.

Minor Heaven is based on a classical art song in terms of vocals and piano . The melody widens and deepens in the course of the piece with the addition of electric guitar and orchestra.

Tarja Turunen during the My Winter Storm Tour (2008)

The melody for the ballad Our Great Divide was written by Anders Wollbeck and Mattias Lindblom. Tarja Turunen rewrote the melody and wrote the lyrics together with Hanne Sorvaag in Ibiza. It is a love song about two people who have a serious falling out. The artist explained on her blog that she started the song as a love song, but cannot say where it ended.

My Little Phoenix is kept in waltz time.

I Walk Alone is inspired by a motif from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Requiem . It was the first single on the album. In the studio a version with increased use of guitars and a version with increased use of orchestra were tried out. Since Turunen couldn't decide between the two versions, both versions were simply released. The accompanying video was recorded at Teufelssee in Berlin under the direction of Jörn Heitmann. Four characters appear in the video - "The Phoenix", "The Dead Boy", "The Doll" and "The Queen of Ice" - who represent Turunen's personality. For her last boxing match in front of 8.8 million TV viewers, Regina Halmich invited Turunen to sing I Walk Alone as the opening piece, as the song is "very emotional and very powerful" and should get the audience in the right mood for the farewell fight . A remix of the song was made by In Extremo .

Alive is about enjoying every moment of your life. The singer describes the song as a "fight song without any swords or blood". It's about the struggle in your life to be able to do what you want so that if you should die the next day, you have lived before. A video was shot for the song.

Oasis was written entirely by the singer herself and sung in Finnish . It is about inner peace and is dedicated to her husband Marcelo Cabuli.

Poison is a cover version of Alice Cooper's title and was generally unpopular with critics.

Damned and Divine was written by Torsten Stenzel, Angela Heldmann, Adrian Zagoritis and Turunen. The bonus track Damned Vampire & Gothic Divine is a different, more guitar-heavy version of the song.

The Reign was written by Torsten Stenzel and Turunen when the two met in Ibiza to discuss several songs on the album. Stenzel also took over the keyboard parts of the album. The cello was recorded by Martin Tillmann. The piece was originally intended as an instrumental. After a few demo recordings, Turunen and Stenzel decided to add vocals. However, the fan edition contains a bonus track, which is an instrumental version of the piece and is very reminiscent of a film soundtrack.

Ciarán's Well originated in Ireland, where the drums, bass and guitars were recorded. The actual text was written in Hamburg . The title is based on a sacred well that was located near the studio. The guitar riffs are originally from a jam session by Doug Wimbish and Alex Scholpp.

The Seer is currently only available as a bonus track on the UK version of the album. It is a rather unusual, symphonic rock song for the style of the album.

“My Winter Storm” tour

Mike Terrana, Max Lilja, Maria Ilmoniemi, Tarja Turunen, Doug Wimbish and Kiko Loureiro during the My Winter Storm Tour - (2008)

On the “My Winter Storm” tour, Tarja Turunen was accompanied by the following musicians from November 25, 2007 until the end of autumn 2009:

• Bass: Doug Wimbish and Oliver Holzwarth
• Electric guitar: Kiko Loureiro or Alex Scholpp
• Drums: Mike Terrana
• Keyboard: Maria Ilmoniemi
• Cello: Max Lilja
• Vocals, electric guitar, keyboard: Toni Turunen

DVD

• Photo gallery
• I Walk Alone (Single Version)
• I Walk Alone (Artist Version)
• I Walk Alone (Making of the video)
• My Winter Storm (Making of the album)

Single releases

• I walk alone
• The Alive
• Enough (digitally published only in UK)

Web links

• Official homepage (requires Flash)
• Criticism at laut.de
• Criticism at Metal.de
• Tarja Turunen: My Winter Storm (2007) Texts in LyricWiki

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Markus Rutten: Interview with Tarja Turunen. In: sounds2move2.de. October 17, 2007, accessed February 7, 2009 . 
2. ↑ Blog on the official German-language homepage. (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on April 24, 2008 ; Retrieved February 7, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
3. ^ Cover of the album "My Winter Storm". (No longer available online.) Archived from the original on January 3, 2010 ; Retrieved February 7, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
4. ↑ Album: My Winter Storm ( Memento of the original from February 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
5. ↑ Metal from Finland: TARJA TURUNEN Records Three New Songs ( Memento of the original from January 7th, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
6. ↑ Report on the sales status of the album. (No longer available online.) In: blabbermouth.net. Archived from the original on April 23, 2008 ; accessed on February 7, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
7. ↑ Chart positions for singles by Tarja Turunen. (No longer available online.) In: musicline.de. Archived from the original on January 13, 2016 ; Retrieved February 7, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
8. ↑ Tarja Turunen in the Austrian charts. In: austriancharts.at. Retrieved February 7, 2009 . 
9. ↑ Tarja Turunen in the Swiss charts. In: hitparade.ch. Retrieved February 7, 2009 . 
10. ↑ Tarja Turunen in the Finnish charts. In: finnishcharts.com. Retrieved February 7, 2009 . 
11. ↑ Chart placements for Tarja Turunen's longplayers. (No longer available online.) In: musicline.de. Archived from the original on October 2, 2012 ; Retrieved February 7, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
12. ^ ^{A b c} Daniel Pieper, Tarja Turunen: Interview part 3. (No longer available online.) In: "My Winter Storm" blog. Archived from the original on January 29, 2013 ; accessed on February 7, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
13. ↑ Tarja Turunen: November 27, 2007 Budapest, Hungary (day before the fight). (No longer available online.) In: "My Winter Storm" blog. Formerly in the original ; accessed on February 7, 2009 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
14. ↑ Tarja Turunen: December 1st, 2007 alreay (!) In Moscow (retrospect from Moscow). (No longer available online.) In: "My Winter Storm" blog. Formerly in the original ; accessed on February 7, 2009 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
15. ↑ Finnish megastar accompanies Regina Halmich in her last fight. (No longer available online.) In: zoolamar.com - webrebelzine. Archived from the original on December 15, 2007 ; Retrieved February 7, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
16. ↑ Michael Edele: Tarja Turunen - My Winter Storm (review). In: laut.de. Retrieved February 7, 2009 . 
17. ↑ Philipp Schmidt: The ex-Nightwish voice makes acoustic widescreen cinema for goths. (No longer available online.) In: now-on.at. Formerly in the original ; Retrieved March 30, 2009 .  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.    
18. ↑ Antal: Tarja Turunen - My Winter Storm. (No longer available online.) In: whiskey-soda.de. Archived from the original on July 25, 2014 ; Retrieved March 30, 2009 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.