Tarja Turunen

[Serena]

Se está haciendo un tattoo

[Serena]

1) I am definitely not pregnant, believe me
2) is not a San Lorenzo tattoo, even though is not a bad idea...
3) I will post a photo if the FB page reaches 500.000 likes

[Serena]

Tarja Turunen – Christmas In The Heart(s)!
Posted on 20. November 2012
Xmas is coming and the former NIGHTWISH singerTarja Turunen is preparing for her upcoming Christmas tour.

How Tarja celebrated Christmas in her youth and why an Argentine Santa Clause is a funny sight to see – read the following interview!

SiN: How did you get the idea for this special Christmas tour? I myself love the Christmas period since my childhood, it´s still a very special time for me – maybe it´s the same for you?

Tarja: I recorded my Christmas album in 2006 and even before that I have been making Christmas tours in Finland and also some concerts abroad. It has became like a tradition to me already to make these tours to happen every year. I love performing in churches, theaters or places like that with different acoustics and atmosphere.
When I was young it was a tradition in my family to sing Christmas songs all together, so the importance of music during Christmas celebrations is big to me.

SiN: Would you share some special childhood memories with us? How is a traditional finnish Xmas like?

Tarja: If there is no snow during Christmas in Finland, the kids are getting worried if Santa Claus can travel with his reindeers and sleigh to bring their presents. So snow is very important factor for the children in Finland. We burn a lot of candles, cook traditional Christmas food and eat a lot. Christmas is a time of a year when you should not think about dieting!
Music is also very important as there are hundreds of Christmas concerts happening during December so people are usually going to listen at least one concert with the whole family before Christmas. I used to cook cookies and Christmas bread with my mom and decorate the real Christmas tree couple of days before Christmas eve with my brothers. I loved that!

SiN: Besides the 4 german concerts you go on tour in your home country Finland. Is there a reason why you decide to play especially in Germany?

Tarja: Last time I performed Christmas concerts in Germany was in 2005 and the experience was really nice at that time. I wanted to make it happen again. My fans were really happy to have me performing totally different kind of concert for them. I am sure that this time it won’t be different!

SiN: The press photo with the red dress is great, you look fantastic in it! Styling and presentation are very important for you, would you agree? One of the nice side effects of being that popular is certainly getting such beautiful dresses and make-up (no, IÂ¥m NOT jealous.. )?

Tarja: Oh well… thank you!  It is rather important for me to choose my performing dresses well in advance and to work with designers that know me. My sponsor Nordenfeldt is going to be designing me a new dress for this year’s concerts. I can’t wait to see the design. Creating a perfect atmosphere for my concerts is definitely most important. That means choosing the songs and the venues carefully.

SiN: I read you moved to Argentina – a big contrast to Finland, isn¥t it? Are the climatic differences the reason?

Tarja: I have lived permanently in Argentina for 4 years now and I love it here. The difference in living in a country like Argentina is huge compared to my home country Finland, but I have never had any cultural problems or problems in accepting the differences. Life is very colorful here and I like the local food, the weather and the people.

Also the fact that I can live a rather normal life here, which I was not able to do in Finland, helped my decision of moving here. I have plenty of fans here, but the city of Buenos Aires is huge so I can go out normally.

SiN: Maybe another reason for the tour, I guess it´s better to celebrate Christmas in frosty Finland ?

Tarja: Definitely the Christmas in Argentina is not feeling like a real Christmas with +40 degrees. Even chocolates are melting in a shadow and the Santas and their helpers are running with shorts! That is rather funny sight to see.

SiN: A new album is announced for Autumn 2013, do you already work on it? What can we expect – a classical or a Goth Metal album, I guess a combination of elements from both directions?

Tarja: The elements on my new studio album are going to remain the same as in my previous studio rod albums. There are songs that are really heavy with guitars and then others having only orchestra in them. I love the dynamic differences in my songs and when you listen to the album, you must know that I have been working so hard in them.
I love the freedom that I have today to produce my records and choose the people to work with. It is unbelievable! I am very happy as an artist today and grateful for the fact that I can have a career on my own.

SiN: Okay, thank you for your time. I wish you huge success with the tour and a wonderful Xmas time! Hyví¤í¤ joulua ja onnellista uutta vuotta! Hope that was correct  !

Tarja: Oh, thank you very much for your kind words! I wish you the same…Frohe Weihnachten und ein gutes neues Jahr! With love, Tarja
(SiN)

More about Tarja: http://www.tarjaturunen.com

[Serena]

Ha sido mamá!!

[Serena]

La embajada finesa en Brasil lo ha confirmado!

Parabíéns Tarja, muita saúde e amor para bebíª e muitas felicidades para toda a famí­lia!

Aquí­

[Serena]

Tarja and her band are busy recording for Tarja’s upcoming album, rehearsing for the upcoming Christmas concerts in Germany and Finland – and in the meanwhile..

Tarja became a mother of a baby girl!
The news is confirmed from different sources already; the name would be Uma Cabuli Turunen.

Via this way, we want to wish Tarja, Marcelo and Uma all joy, health and happiness!

[Serena]

Tarja Turunen on Wednesday, Facebook published by the picture caused a wild rumor mill. Soprano published on Facebook a picture of holding in her arms a small baby.
 
- Is time to go to the airport. In few days a new tour will start in Germany It will be a very special one for us indeed. See you all very soon! Turunen wrote a suggestive image context.
 
Now Turunen's spokesman confirms that this really is the singer and her husband Marcelo Cabulin child.
 
- The baby is their biological child, Turunen spokesman Taija Holm confirms Iltalehti.
 
Nightwish's ex-singer managed to keep her pregnancy secret, therefore, up to the end.
 
Told from the first-Sanomat.
 
Congratulations to both Tarja and her husband, Marcelo. This will be a special Christmas for them indeed!

[Serena]

Entrevista

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TLbGGZkzvw

[Serena]

60 minuten (Part 1)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvuqNPL-GfIí§

Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYkUgTS8jAc

[Serena]

Seura

"I have two sweeties"

The number one place in Tarja Turunen’s heart is now shared by husband Marcelo and baby Naomi. Becoming a mother has also brought up melancholic memories of her own mother who died of cancer at the age of 53.
Singer Tarja Turunen, 35, had a running start to her visit to Finland. She rushed from the airport to a live tv- broadcast to confirm to the Finnish people that the news coming from the world are true. That she has really become a mother.
For a few years now Tarja Turunen has told in interviews that a baby would be welcomed. Now the dream has come true. Now with the singer, who at the moment lives in Argentina, has not only husband Marcelo Cabuli on tour, but also a little daughter Naomi Erika Alexia Cabuli Turunen.
She is already four months old. Why did the singer hide her pregnancy and birth for so long? And how did she manage to do it?

Calm Naomi

When arriving for Seura’s interview Tarja Turunen looks suprisingly rested for a recent mother. She does tell that she hasn’t been sleeping well for the last couple of days, but not because of the baby but because of work.
Before coming to Finland she sang four Christmas concerts in a row in different parts of Germany and slept poorly on the bus. Naomi and Marcelo instead slept like babies in a crib on the wiggling bus.
”Naomi is luckily a very calm child”, Tarja sighs.
She tells that the baby even slept the long plane ride from Argentina to Europe. She has been sleeping from 8pm to 6am and waking up once at the most to eat since she was born.
”We haven’t been tired at any point because of the baby”, the lucky mum tells.
Dad-Marcelo takes care of her when the singer is performing or taking care of other business stuff. Tarja gave up breast feeding after a tangled start.
”My body didn’t function like I would have hoped. There’s nothing you can do about that. And it does make life easier, that dad can be with the child for long periods of time”, Tarja ponders.

The pregnancy wasn’t noticed

Tarja Turunen’s motherhood was revealed at the end of November at her own wish. The singer published a picture on her Facebook-page where she’s holding a baby. Soon her public communicator revealed to the press that it was Tarja Turunen’s biological child.
”We put the picture on Facebook on purpose. It would have come out on gigs in Germany.”
Tarja says that the baby wasn’t actually hidden at any point. She admits keeping a low profile about the pregnancy, but not because she was afraid of a miscarriage of other problems.
”I think private matters are private. I’m not the type of person who would use a pregnancy in promotion”, she says.
She is visibly happy about friends and family who knew about the matter for a long time kept it to themselves.
The pregnancy stayed a secret thanks to hiding clothes too.
”It was winter in Argentina when I was pregnant so I wore a thick coat”, Tarja tells laughing.
One time she was with Marcelo shopping for the baby when fans spotted her and came for a chat. Pictures were taken too – but no one noticed the pregnancy or the baby supplies in the bag.
Feeling sick didn’t reveal the pregnancy either, since Tarja didn’t suffer from nausea at all. She was on tour for the first five months of pregnancy. Tarja’s belly didn’t even have time to grow noticebly large, because Naomi was born a month early.
Tarja doesn’t want to talk about the reason behind the early labour.
”It was a suprise, but both me and baby are fine.”
After the baby’s birth Tarja hasn’t avoided public places according to her own words. She just didnt’ happen to run into fans while taking walks with the baby.
In Argentina reporters knew about the pregnancy but due to Tarja’s request the matter wasn’t told in the press. It was important for Tarja to tell the matter to the Finnish audience first.

Two sweeties

There has been childlessness amongst the people close to Tarja so she didn’t consider having kids a no-brainer.
”We got really lucky. My husband isn’t exactly young at 43. I wouldn’t have wanted to loose the oppertunity of becoming a mum”, Tarja tells.
Now Tarja follows with admiration how her daughter keeps learning new things. Before the first place in the singer’s heart was reseved for just her husband, but now the spot is shared.
”I have these two sweeties of mine. It’s a lovely joy that I’ve become a mum – and the love for my husband has deepened. My heart almost bursts when I see the two together.”
In Argentina the family’s relationship to Marcelo’s family is close. In Finland Tarja’s family has already waited for the reunion and of course meeting the newborn.
Time with the family is limited, since most of Tarja’s visit to Finland will be spent on a Christmas tour that starts in Savonlinna and ends in Jí¤msí¤. For the New Year the family will travel to Argentina.
”We have work waiting there.”
Tarja does say that she will try to visit Finland with her family in the future. Tarja says she misses the silence and the summer of Finland while in Argentina.
”But I do not miss this darkness, coldness or the snow one bit”, she confesses.
She also enjoys Argentina because there she isn’t so often regonized as in Finland.
”In Finland the public me takes a lot of strength. Argentina has given me freedom.”
Thanks to the argentinean culture Tarja tells that she has learned to be open, which has been the way out from many anxieties.
”With Marcelo I have learned to talk about things with their real names. That way nothing keeps bugging you. We sometimes have strict conversations but we don’t yell, slam doors or give silent treatments”, Tarja tells.
According to Tarja the openess in Argentina sometimes has amusing features.
A while back her mother-in-law asked quite bluntly how the intimate side of the relationship was going after having a baby.
”I told her, we were doing great. We both now have a new love to handle and it is of course a challenge for us both.”

A strict mum

Becoming a mother has also brought up melancholic memories of her own mother who died of cancer at the age of 53 in 2003. The longing becames usually worse in Finland.
“I’ve gotten past the memories of mother’s suffering and times near the end. Now I have more nice memories in my mind.”
Tarja tells that her mum was more than a mum to her.
“We were like twins. We were so well in sync and I lost a lot in her.”
Tarja tells she was raised strictly and got clear instructions for life from her mum: don’t spend time daydreaming and work hard.
“I’ll probably be a strict mum myself. I want my child to understand that nothing comes for free.”
She thinks that her work that demands travelling will make Naomi’s life tough. On tour it may be hard for a child to make and keep friends.
Tarja is ready for Marcelo and Naomi staying home at some point when she goes on tour. That will be new since Marcelo and Tarja have travelled together for 12 years, supporting together.
“Being apart will be tough for me and surely for them too.”

[Serena]

Meinaset

When Tarja Turunen found out shen was pregnant the family didn’t consider for a moment that the singer would stop touring.
– The happiness of the child is the most important thing. I hope Namu will adapt to our life style because without my career I would become a terrible person.

”I wondered can I be a good mum”

In Kitee on the yard of a blueish gray house the snow has formed a smooth mantle. The only footprints lead to the front door, to the lanterns and next to them to the lobby which has plenty of suitcases. A few have still snowflakes on them.
The bags have travelled from Argentina to Germany from there to Helsinki and at last here to North-Karelia. Tarja Turunen, 35, and her family has reached their destination just a few moments ago. We are at the house of the singer’s brother: at Timo, Minna and the two little princess’ house. Here the Turunen family gathers to spend Christmas together now with a new person among them.
Naomi Erika Alexia Cabuli Turunen is a little over four months and for the first time at her Tarja-mum’s birthplace in Eastern Finland. At his father’s Marcelo Cabuli’s. 43, home in Argentina it is customary to give a child one or two names at the most, but Naomi has three, two last names and a nickname Namu.
- Thank god it was a girl, we didn’t have any boy names thought out, Tarja laughs and strokes the brown hair on Namu’s head.
The girl lays on her dad’s lap and looks at admirers with her dark eyes. The maternity clinic doctor has predicted that they will eventually turn green. Marcelo is fine with that: he thinks with brown eyes the girl would cause her dad even more gray hairs and hurry keeping boyfriends away.
- It’s always lovely to come back to Kitee but this time it feels special. My brothers beat me to it at having a family and always said that someday you’ll understand what it means. And this is an amazingly great thing, Tarja tells.

Calender precise baby bliss

Tarja and Marcelo have been together for 12 years, married almost ten. Marcelo has two kids, a 17- and 19-year-old boys.
- The boys have their mother and no one will replace her, but I too have close relationships with the kids. When they were little they used to hold my hand when walking in the city and came sleep next to us in the evening. Just a few years ago it wasn’t clear to me that I would have kids of my own, Tarja says.
The idea of a bigger family came just the year before last. Tarja started to miss a child of her own.
– I noticed a clear change in how I felt. I started to see babies everywhere. I thought that dammit should we get on with it. Marcelo is eight years older and that’s also why I didn’t want to postpone the decision.
Tarja and Marcelo sometimes spend the whole year on tour and a child changes everything. The baby was planned with calendars in hand.
- We went through future plans. If I got easily pregnant the baby would come between tours. But you can never know with these things. We got lucky and succeeded right away.
The early stages of pregnancy Tarja spent on a long rock tour. At the end of the tour she was already five months along and waited when nausea would harm the performances.
- I get easily sick. When we drive in the mountains Marcelo has to pull over when I pant that I’m about to puke. It’s amazing but during the pregnancy I didn’t have nausea on one single day, Tarja cheers.
The couple told about the pregnancy to their close ones and didn’t mean to hide or keep the baby a secret. Fans nor the media noted Tarja’s growing belly. Still a week before the labor she was shopping in baby supply stores and signing autographs without any hullabaloo.
- Just one fan in Brazil noticed what was going on. (S)he came to thank me for the show and said “You’re pregnant”. I was like what and just said I had too much pizza, Tarja tells laughing.
Keeping the child a secret became a joke to Tarja’s people. They wondered would the news really come out just in Finland. The news spread in early December when Tarja published a baby picture on her Facebook-page.
- Fans were positively shocked. And the amount of presents that Namu has gotten from them, Tarja says.
There’s in the suitcase from a French fan a sweet dress with Santa’s reindeers pulling the sleigh. Namu might wear that when the family gathers to spend Christmas.

Grandmums, granddads and canned foods

The house in Kitee is roomy and full of feeling. The table seats many people and at Christmas it is made even longer. At its best the table has had 18 people and every year there is absolutely Karelian hot pot and sweetened potato casserole on the table but never lutefisk. The Karelian pies are ordered from a familiar retired lady and the next patch will have 500 of them.

There is plenty of Turunen family, on the mother’s side Hakkarainen there is just mother’s brother. When Tarja and Timo meet in the kitchen there is a long and hard hug. The siblings discuss cosyly and warmly, sometimes the brother teases her sister about her bottom and soon calls her Tarja-love.
Tarja’s mother passed away of cancer at the age of 53, but she is in her family’s thoughts every day. Mother smiles in Kitee in picture with a candle burning in front of it. Tarja and Marcelo have the same at home in Buenos Aires. Often Marcelo lights the candle before Tarja.
- I had to have a little cry when I thought how happy those are, who have grandparents in the family to help and support. Mother was an important friend to me and I would have wanted to share becoming a mother with her. There is a great hole when mom isn’t here anymore. With her a great part of my life went away.
But luckily there’s grandpa. In the living room Tarja’s dad follows his grandchildren and shakes his head when one empties Namu’s sitter and tucks her own bunnies there. The other one has gotten off her dress and runs around with just pants.
- I operate women, grandpa thinks.

Also Namu’s grandparents in Argentina are thrilled. After the baby was born the local grandpa swore he got more years to his life. The parents are on the elderly side so they can’t really help with taking care of Namu.
- Mother-in-law already told that you need to make all the food for a baby yourself. When canned food weren’t fed to Marcelo they shouldn’t be fed to Namu either. I did snap at Marcelo that goddamn how much more advise will we get, but she has calmed down.
Tarja and Marcelo have friends as their safety net but mostly it’s just the two of them running the everyday life. It’s been like that always.
- We are pretty much alone in this life. Our life is so much on the road. You could pretty much say that we have just each other and now Namu.
Tarja has noticed that a child has waked up new concerns.
- Now I am more afraid for Marcelo. I tell him to drive safe more often. We’ve talked about what if something happened to one of us. I cry how terrible it would be alone but Marcelo always says you’d manage.
His realism and calmness are the biggest difference when compared to Tarja. The latino personality is there but more often it is Marcelo calming Tarja down.
- I take those artistic freedoms once in a while and blow up sometimes. Or then I panic so much I can’t think straight at all. When in panic I can’t even put my underpants on right but Marcelo is never over the top. He’s the train going in the right direction while I may go to the wrong rails.

From an incubator to in line for school

There’s a sniffle from the kitchen. Namu is feeding bottled milk on her father’s lap while with the other hand Marcelo is taking care of his e-mails. Tarja finds it amusing that they were at first in panic whether Marcelo knew how to take care of a baby anymore. He had thought about it himself, it had been so long since the boys were born after all.
Tarja praises the “extremely good” labor training in a German hospital in Buenos Aires. There they sat together in theory class and Tarja in mother’s gym class.
- Marcelo was slightly amused by it but he went along without any buts. He has studied in medical school and was interested in the anatomical part of it while I was learning baby words in Spanish.
Namu was born a month early, weighing just 2,2 kilos. The first days she gathered her strength in an incubator on top of a sheep hide and the family got used to the little one in the hospital a little longer. The unexpected start scared a bit at first but now Tarja thinks it was good timing.
- We got more time to get to know Namu before going on tour. The months at home were a great time for calming down, we just got be in peace. The most important thing is that she’s healthy.
Tarja didn’t think to stop working and staying home with the baby at any point. In Argentina mothers return to work when the baby is four weeks old. For most it’s because of the money, life is hard and there is no support system. Tarja on the other hand feels she would die without music.
- If I had to quit my career I’d become a terrible person. Music keeps me alive without that I can’t be happy. If I suffer then the family suffers. We have talked that Marcelo would stay home when she goes to school.
In Argentina you move to kinder garden at the age of two and to school at six years old. The most popular private schools need to be applied as soon as the baby is born. Namu has been seen by a few English schools.
Also religion plays a big part in raising a child. Namu will grow up with many religions since her granddad is Jewish, grandmum Catholic, Tarja Lutheran and Marcelo doesn’t feel like he belongs at any church. In the young family’s life religion has no great part and Namu can choose her own conviction.
- Namu’s childhood will in many ways be different than mine. I’m a little worried that she won’t have a yard like this to run around and nature around her. We have to start holding hands right at the front door.
Tarja plans to teach her daughter what it is to be a Finn. The nature, the sea and the language will be made familiar. Marcelo is fine with this, he’d rather live here whereas Tarja enjoys the colorfulness of the big city.
- Her social network will be something totally different than the kids next door, most of them will never go abroad or learn different languages. On the other hand she has to adapt to changing friends and sceneries.
Tarja says she’s a sturdy mother, in parenting stricter than Marcelo.
- Otherwise we have the same values. A child can be a child, frolic and trifle as long as the boundaries are made clear. A child has to be heard and she is entitled to her opinion.
I hope she finds a passion, something to get excited about. I hope we are as encouraging as parents as my family was.
Tarja’s parents drove her to hobbies five times a week.
- On the other hand we were taught to value work. You could have dreams but you had to make the effort for them. I hated waking up at seven in the morning to pick up strawberries from the yard but now I can value that.

Home in May

Tarja works now in Finland too, very near Christmas. Christmas in the Hearts tour reaches from Rovaniemi to Espoo until the 22. of December.
- At Christmas you sing about important and good things. When I am able to give a person a moment of peace in the middle of chaos if makes me feel good too.
During the rock tours Tarja will sing two nights in row at most and then there’s a day off. At Christmas it’s a different pace: there’s one day off in ten days of tour and that the family will spend driving from Rovaniemi to Pori. Tarja and Marcelo take turns in watching the driving wheel and the pacifier.
- I don’t worry about how I manage. Before the tour I had time to take care of myself. Sing a lot, I ate well, went to the gym, swam and got to relax at home with the baby. It was a special treat.
In January the family will fly to Miami, Caribbean, Los Angeles and Texas to make Tarja’s next album. After the recordings the Beauty and the Beat- tour starts in Europe. Tarja counts she will be home in middle of May.
- We enjoy the life on tour and hope Namu will learn to enjoy it also. The most important thing is responsibility about the child, but I think we will manage. I often think what makes a good mother and am nervous can I be that to Namu.
Tarja hasn’t read any baby- or parenting books. She doesn’t believe that the truth is inside book covers.
- We will surely make mistakes as parents but we’re healthy in the head and we will find our own way of being parents. Luckily I’m becoming more relaxed and more certain all the time. It feels safe when Marcelo says that I’m always the best mum for my child.

[Serena]

Christmas in The Hearts Live in Vaasa

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzBa2G_xPas

[Serena]

Entrevista Metal Army

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qDRSh20A9RI

[Serena]

All went fine yesterday in the studio. We were working vocals for "Killer". This is anyway just a working title . Now I am heading to studio again.

[Serena]

Isn't it lovely to be able to work with the whole family? We recorded a cover song for the new album. It worked out pretty well You can start guessing the  Artist I covered