Book Trans-Siberian Orchestra

Trans-Siberian Orchestra is the American rock ensemble behind a touring holiday spectacle that fills arenas every winter. Producer and lyricist Paul O'Neill created the project in 1996, building its core creative team from Savatage's Jon Oliva and Al Pitrelli plus keyboardist and co-producer Robert Kinkel. The group started touring in 1999, a year after its second album, The Christmas Attic, and grew into a fixture of the winter arena calendar. Its records are full-length rock operas, among them Christmas Eve and Other Stories, The Lost Christmas Eve, Beethoven's Last Night, the double album Night Castle and Letters from the Labyrinth. Concerts pair a rock band and singers with a string section, lasers, moving trusses, video walls and pyrotechnics timed to the music, and the band is known for donating part of each show's proceeds to local charities. Ticket sales have passed ten million, and album sales have passed ten million as well, and Billboard and Pollstar have both ranked it in the top twenty-five ticket sellers of the 2000s. Unusually, the band never worked its way up through clubs or opening slots, going straight to theatres and arenas.