Tarja Soile Susanna Turunen-Cabuli, known professionally as Tarja Turunen or simply Tarja, is a Finnish heavy metal singer best known as the former lead vocalist of the symphonic metal band Nightwish. Turunen studied lyrical singing at Sibelius Academy and the Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe. She is a professional classical lied singer with a three-octave vocal range, and founded symphonic metal band Nightwish with Tuomas Holopainen and Emppu Vuorinen in 1996. Their combination of hard and fast guitar riffs with Turunen's dramatic, "operatic" lead vocals quickly achieved critical and commercial popularity. Their classically influenced music, dubbed symphonic metal, inspired many other metal bands and performers. Turunen was fired from the band on 21 October 2005 for personal reasons accompanied by an open letter from the band. 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 symphonic metal, and started the Storm World Tour. From Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tarja_T...) under Creative Commons Attribution CC-BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b...)