Rock 'n' Roll 'n' Blues Women!

Tarja Soile Susanna Turunen-Cabuli (born 17 August 1977), known professionally as Tarja Turunen or simply Tarja, is a Finnish heavy metal singer-songwriter. She is a lyric soprano and has a vocal range of three octaves.[1]

Turunen studied singing at Sibelius Academy and Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe. She is a professional classical lied singer, and the former lead vocalist of the Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish, which she founded 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 symphonic metal style, soon dubbed "opera metal", inspired many other metal bands and performers. MORE

Olzon was raised in a musical family and has been singing since childhood.[2] Her mother also forced her to play the oboe for 8 years. She toured with her mother's band and sang with them on some occasions. Later, she started to take part in various talent shows and received laudable recognition.[2] The first band she joined at seventeen years of age (Take Cover) was a cover band. However, it was short-lived as she took part in several bands and projects. At twenty-one, she played the leading role in the rock opera/musical "Gränsland" in Helsingborg. After that she got into the Balettakademien in Gothenburg. She sang in choirs, did studio work for various projects and occasionally performed as a wedding singer. Olzon also sang a duet with Michael Bormann (ex-Jaded Heart singer) on his album Conspiracy.

In her earlier days, Olzon took singing lessons at the Copenhagen Music Conservatorie, in Helsingør, Denmark, with a private teacher. Nowadays, she takes lessons from a private teacher at the Malmö Music University when needed.[2]

Before singing, Olzon has worked in a factory, in a hamburger restaurant, as a waitress, as a veterinarian assistant, in a number of offices and as a hair dresser.[3] She has also studied musical artist education, psychology, project management and leadership and organization.[3] MORE

Floor Jansen (pronounced [ˈfloːr ˈjɑnsə(n)]; born 21 February 1981) is a Dutch singer, songwriter, and vocal coach. She is currently the lead vocalist of Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish.

Jansen first became known as a member of symphonic metal band After Forever, standing as their lead vocalist from 1997, when she joined at age 16, to their disbanding in 2009. When After Forever disbanded, she formed ReVamp and has released two albums with them. In 2012 following the departure of their lead vocalist Anette Olzon, Nightwish brought in Jansen as a touring member until the end of their Imaginaerum World Tour. In 2013, they announced Jansen was now their full-time lead vocalist; she subsequently disbanded ReVamp to focus on Nightwish. In 2018, she and Pagan's Mind guitarist Jørn Viggo Lofstad premiered their hard rock duo Northward.

A frequent collaborator of Arjen Anthony Lucassen, she is a member of his progressive metal supergroup Star One, and sang in the Ayreon albums Universal Migrator Part 1: The Dream Sequencer, 01011001, and The Source, as well as the live album Ayreon Universe – The Best of Ayreon Live. She also sang lead vocals in several songs of the MaYan album Quarterpast and in Avalon's Angels of the Apocalypse. She is the older sister of fellow singer Irene Jansen, who also worked with Ayreon.

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Jansen can sing from classical to belting and raspy vocals like screaming and death growls.[23][24][25] She is a soprano.[26][27][28][29]

Jansen started studying music at the Dutch Rock Academy in 1999, entering the Conservatorium Tilburg three years later. She studied musical theatre and a year of opera.[23][24] After After Forever split up she started teaching performing in her own course called Wanna be a Star?!

She used to play the guitar, piano and flute and has completed several years of music studies.[30][31] MORE

Yes, destroy evil with evil," Amalie Bruun sings in her native Danish at the beginning of "Ulvinde," her latest song as Myrkur. In the accompanying music video, Bruun crawls through mossy roots and stumbles over frigid rock outcroppings. Occasionally, she spits up blood.

It's rough stuff, lyrically and visually, but Bruun's singing voice is beautiful. Where most metal singers either croon or belt, she rings. Her delivery, full of sustaining notes that subtly decay, is reminiscent of choral music — with all the ritualism, religiosity and awe it entails. Bruun can scream, too, and the shots of her engaged in a commanding, full-throated shriek entangle with shots of her bloody mouth. The juxtaposition of those forces — Bruun's two voices, distorted guitars and violent images — gives her work a vital charge.MORE

Their latest album, Grey Oceans, was released this May. It manages to keep the strange experimental sounds such as those from noisemakers and child's toys yet sounds much more polished than previous albums. Bianca told us that the overarching theme of their live shows this tour is "bedtime, bedroom, lovespells, dreams and past lives."

A recent live performance in New Orleans was nothing short of jaw-dropping. They performed with their favorite New Orleans trans musician, Sissy Nobby, of whom Bianca says, "We love him right now."

I was actually shocked to see that they didn't use any type of vocal effects; that's just what they sound like. Sierra's professional opera training is evident; her voice is crystal clear and almost dream-like and Bianca's high pitched gangster squeal was legit. Both girls performed in haunting, mystical costumes, much like those worn in their latest video, "Lemonade," which is amazingly beautiful and very fairy-tale-esque.MORE

The story of how Sierra and Bianca Casady formed CocoRosie is on its way toward legend. Two American sisters, half-Cherokee, and not close during their nomadic childhood, are reunited as adults in Paris and, just for fun, record the ground-breaking and eerily beautiful La Maison de mon Reve in their bathtub. The CD finds its way into the hands of powers that be at Touch and Go and suddenly they have a record deal. Sierra abandons her Parisian opera studies and they move to Brooklyn where they mingle with the likes of Antony (of Antony and the Johnsons) and Devendra Banhart. Much touring ensues with positive reviews and comparisons to everyone from Billie Holliday to Portishead.

With their second CD due early next month, Junkmedia spoke with Sierra about the changes that have taken place in their lives in the past 18 months.

Brooklyn seems like the red-hot center of a lot of interesting new music with you, Devendra, Antony, TV on the Radio, etc. What's it like to be in the middle of that?

There's two sides that we see to this subject. One is we just kind of hide away and do our own thing and don't feel necessarily connected to a scene. And then on the other hand there is something special, some kind of collective consciousness that seems to be uprising right now. I think there are several artists in New York that do feel really connected and for us that's Antony, and a few other artists like Diane Cluck. She's a really special folk musician. It's kind of a small little family circle, but there is something. I can't explain it.

Given that you never intended your first album to be heard by anyone other than friends, were you nervous about writing the second album, knowing it would be heard or wondering how it would be received? MORE

Natalia Lafourcade (born Natalia Lafourcade Silva on 26 February 1984 in Mexico City,Mexico) is a Mexican pop-rock singer and songwriter. Her band's name is Natalia y La Forquetina.
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