Trans-Siberian Orchestra
The Trans-Siberian Orchestra is a rock orchestra from New York, New York, USA conceived by Paul O'Neill in 1996. Their style mixes rock, metal and classical music into a famous sound almost anyone should recognize. All of their albums are Rock Operas and three of these (five albums in total) are Christmas Rock Operas. They have a lot of members. In total, there are four composers, 20 vocalists, five guitarists, three bassists, two drummers, four keyboardists and three violinists currently playing with them, studio, live or otherwise. They have a legendary stage show because of their spectacular light shows, performing abilities and kick ass music. Despite being together for approximately 15 years, they've only released five albums as their composers are known perfectionists, having delayed their newest release, Night Castle, for three years before it was finally released in October of 2009. They also delayed their second stage show, based on their Beethoven's Last Night album, for almost ten years before finally putting it on tour in spring of 2010.
They are also popular suppliers of music for overly ambitious homemade light shows, especially their song "Wizards in Winter" from their 2004 album, The Lost Christmas Eve, as these videos show.
- Christmas Eve and Other Stories (1996)
- The Christmas Attic (1998)
- Beethoven's Last Night (2000, their first non-seasonal album)
- The Lost Christmas Eve (2004)
- Night Castle (2009, their second non-seasonal album)
- All There in the Manual: The albums all have a complex story tying all the songs together, but you might be surprised to discover this until your first time at the seasonal stage show. These stories can be found in their entirety in the CD Cover or on the web page.
- Concept Album: All five of their albums are of the Rock Opera variety.
- Epic Rocking
- Fan Service: All the female members are very attractive.
- Instrumentals: Much of their material.
- Loads and Loads of Characters: 41 current members with 20 musicians as former members, arguably the largest band to hold major popularity.
- Public Domain Song: Two very popular remixes of "Canon in D Major", though damn if Trans-Siberian doesn't try to take down any DMCA violation (read: uploading "Christmas Canon" to YouTube for the enjoyment of others).
- Rock Opera: Again, all five albums.
- Serial Escalation: How much more extreme can the light shows get?
- Take That: Many TSO/Savatage members note with bemusement and/or disgust that the only difference between "Christmas Eve in Sarajevo" on Dead Winter Dead and "Christmas Eve" from Christmas Eve and Other Stories is that one was released by a metal band called Savatage and the other by Trans-Siberian, but only one got extensive radio play. Guess which one.