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Trans-Siberian Orchestra (TSO) is an American progressive rock band founded in 1993 by producer, composer, and lyricist Paul O'Neill, who brought together Jon Oliva and Al Pitrelli (both members of Savatage) and keyboardist and co-producer Robert Kinkel to form the core of the creative team. The band gained in popularity when they began touring in 1999 after completing their third rock opera, "Beethoven's Last Night." By 2007, The Washington Post referred to them as, "a touring juggernaut" and describing their music as, "Pink Floyd, meets, The Who, meets Yes." TSO has sold more than 9 million concert tickets and over 8 million albums. The band's musical style incorporates classical, orchestral, symphonic, and progressive elements into hard rock and heavy metal. The band has released a series of rock operas: ''Christmas Eve and Other Stories'', ''The Christmas Attic'', ''Beethoven's Last Night'', ''The Lost Christmas Eve'' (the final installment of their Christmas trilogy), and their two-disc ''Night Castle''. Trans-Siberian Orchestra is also known for their extensive charity work and elaborate concerts, which include a string section, a light show, lasers,"enough pyro to be seen from the international space station", moving trusses, video screens, and effects synchronized to music. Both ''Billboard Magazine'' and ''Pollstar'' have ranked them as one of the top ten ticket-selling bands in the first decade of the new millennium These numbers are even more impressive when you factor in that TSO is the first major rock band to go straight to theaters and arenas, never playing a club, never having an opening act and never being an opening act.

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