''Dark Christmas'' is the third classical and Christmas album, and the ninth studio album released by the Finnish

soprano A soprano () is a type of classical female singing voice and has the highest vocal range of all voice types. The soprano's vocal range (using scientific pitch notation) is from approximately middle C (C4) = 261 Hz to "high A" (A5) = 880&n ...

Tarja Turunen Tarja Soile Susanna Turunen-Cabuli (born 17 August 1977), known professionally as Tarja Turunen or simply Tarja, is a Finnish heavy metal singer, best known as the former lead vocalist of Nightwish. She is a soprano with a three and a half o ...

. It is the long-awaited sequel to her second Christmas album, ''

From Spirits and Ghosts (Score for a Dark Christmas) ''From Spirits and Ghosts (Score for a Dark Christmas)'' is the second classical and Christmas album, and the seventh studio album released by the Finnish soprano Tarja Turunen. The music was arranged and orchestrated by Tarja's frequent collabo ...

''. The music was arranged and orchestrated by Tarja's frequent collaborators

Jim Dooley James William Dooley (February 8, 1930 – January 8, 2008) was an American football player and coach who is best remembered for his tenures as a player and coach with the Chicago Bears of the National Football League (NFL). College career Bo ...

and

Tim Palmer Timothy J. Palmer (born 4 October 1962, in North Shields) is an English record producer, audio engineer, guitarist and songwriter of rock music, rock and alternative rock, alternative music. He Audio mixing (recorded music), mixed Pearl Jam's d ...

. The album is the first to include a special

children's choir A choir ( ; also known as a chorale or chorus) is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform. Choirs may perform music from the classical music repertoire, which sp ...

in each song, with the choir also including her own daughter, Naomi Cabuli Turunen. Naomi also plays the drums on some songs. The album was announced to be specially mixed with immersive

Dolby Atmos Dolby Atmos is a surround sound technology developed by Dolby Laboratories. It expands on existing surround sound systems by adding height channels, allowing sounds to be interpreted as three-dimensional objects with neither horizontal, nor verti ...

mixing, and it was announced that there would be pre-listening sessions in cinemas worldwide of the album. Each song was also announced to be receiving its own music video.

Background

The album includes eleven popular Christmas songs, such as "

O Holy Night "O Holy Night" (original title: ) is a well-known sacred song for Christmas performance. Originally based on a French-language poem by poet Placide Cappeau, written in 1843, with the first line (Midnight, Christian, is the solemn hour) that co ...

", " All I Want for Christmas is You", and "

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer is a fictional reindeer created by Robert L. May. Rudolph is usually depicted as the ninth and youngest of Santa Claus's reindeer, using his luminous red nose to lead the reindeer team and guide Santa's sleigh on ...

", as well as an originally composed Christmas song by Tarja entitled "Dark Christmas", which take a dark and gothic twist on the famous classics. Like ''From Spirits and Ghosts (Score for a Dark Christmas)'', it utilizes grand orchestras combined with Tarja's soprano vocals to create a beautiful atmosphere. The album was specially created for those who have lost the happiness of Christmas, as well as those who want to embrace the holiday spirit while exploring a more mysterious side of Christmas. The album was first teased on Tarja's social media on 23 October 2023, and the first single, "Frosty the Snowman", was released on 31 October 2023. The second single, "Jingle Bells", was released on 3 November 2023.

Track listing

Charts

References

{{Tarja Turunen 2023 Christmas albums 2020s classical albums Tarja Turunen albums