Tiësto

"Tijs" redirects here. For other persons, see Tijs (disambiguation).

Tiësto

yo bro this guys da fcukin hawtest DJ is da world yo i fcukin bump him at da club when going fcukin bananas on E yo! Tiësto OON (Dutch pronunciation: [tiɛsto]; born Tijs Michiel Verwest [tɛɪs mixiɫ vərʋɛst] on January 17, 1969) is a Dutch musician, DJ and record producer of electronic dance music. Although he has used many aliases in the past, he is best known for his work as DJ Tiësto. On his latest productions, however, he has dropped the "DJ" label and is now known simply as "Tiësto", an alias which is a twist of his childhood nickname.

In 1997 he founded the label Black Hole Recordings with Arny Bink, where he released the Magik and In Search of Sunrise CD series. In 1999 and 2000 he collaborated with Ferry Corsten to create Gouryella. His 2000 remix of Delerium's "Silence" featuring Sarah McLachlan exposed him to more mainstream audiences. In 2001 he released his first solo album In My Memory which gave him several major hits that launched his career. He was named "World’s No.1 DJ" 3 consecutive times by DJ Magazine from 2002 through 2004.

Just after releasing his second studio album Just Be in 2004, at the Summer Olympics he performed live at the opening ceremony in Athens, Greece, becoming the first DJ to play live on stage at an Olympics. Tracks he made especially for the Olympics were mixed together and released as the mix compilation Parade of the Athletes later that year. He was appointed Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau in 2004 by Queen Beatrix. He was chosen as the official ambassador for the Dance4Life foundation in May 2006, and released the song "Dance4Life" with Maxi Jazz to help spread the awareness of HIV/AIDS. In April 2007 Tiësto launched both his radio show Tiësto's Club Life on Radio 538 in the Netherlands and released his third studio album titled Elements of Life. The album reached number one on the Dutch album chart as well on "Billboard Top Electronic Albums" in the U.S. and received a nomination for a Grammy Award in 2008. Tiësto released his fourth studio album called Kaleidoscope in October 2009.

Life and musical career

1969–2000: Early life

Tijs Michiel Verwest was born in Breda, North Brabant, Netherlands on January 17, 1969. He had an interest in music since the age of twelve. When he was fourteen he decided to dedicate more time to it and began DJing professionally at school parties. He then moved on to become a resident DJ between 1985 and 1994 at several clubs in the Netherlands after his manager and friend Wilfred encouraged him. However, it was at The Spock, a small club in Breda, where he was able to fine-tune his own style by playing in a separate room from 10 p.m. until 4 a.m. on weekends. In the beginning of his career as a DJ he mostly played New Beat and acid house, and many Madonna songs because her music shows that she likes to dance. Before the release of her album there were already dancemixes like "Vogue" which was one of the songs of Spock.

In 1994 he began releasing material on Noculan Records' sub-labels Chemo and Coolman. During these years, he produced hardcore/gabber tracks under aliases such as Da Joker and DJ Limited. He was later discovered by the general manager of Rotterdam-based Basic Beat Recordings. In late-1994 he signed to Basic Beat where he met Arny Bink, Tiësto released records on the sub-label Trashcan, founded by Arny, and later created the Guardian Angel sub-label with Arny in which they introduced the popular Forbidden Paradise series. Meanwhile from 1995 to 1996 he released four extended plays on Bonzai Jumps and XTC, sub-labels of Lightning Records. In 1997 Tiësto joined his friend Yves Vandichel on his sub-label, DJ Yves, a division of the now defunct Human Resource label XSV Music. In the fall of 1997, both Arny and Tiësto decided to leave Basic Beat and create their own parent label, now known as Black Hole Recordings, Trashcan was discontinued and Guardian Angel continued releasing music until 2002. Through Black Hole, Tiësto released the Magik series and also created two major sub-labels in 1998; In Trance We Trust and SongBird. From 1998 to 1999 Tiësto released music on Planetary Consciousness were he met A&R Hardy Heller and invited him to release some records on Black Hole. Tiësto later included the In Search of Sunrise series on SongBird. In 1999, Tiësto joined forces with fellow Dutch deejay Ferry Corsten to create the trance based duo of Gouryella. To highlight the importance in the expansion of the trance environment at the time, there were 20 different CD releases of the 4 Gouryella tracks from 9 different labels. He also collaborated with Benno de Goeij from 1998 to 2000 under the name Kamaya Painters. Since November 1999 he performed monthly as a resident at Gatecrasher in Sheffield, one of the most popular clubs in England. In 1999 he also played in a 12-hour set, being his longest lasting concert in Amsterdam.

2000–2002: Rise to fame and In My Memory

Late in 2000, Tiësto decided to concentrate on his personal work and left Corsten by himself to write and produce Gouryella's next single with John Ewbank, the record company was demanding more tracks and neither Tiësto or Ferry could work together at the time. Tiësto introduced Armin van Buuren, Johan Gielen and Ferry Corsten to the mainstream with his first compilations and the In Trance We Trust series. Summerbreeze became Tiësto's debut DJ mix album in the US with the help of a contract signed to Nettwerk. Summerbreeze featured his remix of Delerium's "Silence", it spent four weeks in the UK's Top Ten chart, it reached number three in the Billboard dance chart. In Search of Sunrise 2 was released in 2000. Tiësto decided to create a sub-label, known as Magik Muzik. The label began releasing Tiësto’s own releases, but it has also released tracks for the Filterheadz, Oliver Lieb, Mark Norman, Mojado, Phynn and Jes Brieden. The label became a trademark which stands for high quality electronic dance music which was due to the release of Tiësto's classic dance anthem "Flight 643" in 2001.

Tiësto's fame started to rise in the early 2000s after his set at the first ID&T Innercity party (Live at Innercity: Amsterdam RAI), and the release of In My Memory, his first solo album released in 2001 which contained 10 singles and 5 major hits; The singles from the album were: "Lethal Industry" which was actually produced in 1999 and had only 3 copies released at that time, the track was officially released in 2001 which was remixed by Richard Durand in 2006 along with "Flight 643" which was another leading single that was later adapted with vocals by Suzanne Palmer and released as "643 (Love's on Fire)". Other tracks were "Obsession" in which Tiësto worked alongside Junkie XL also known as Tom Holkenborg, the instrumental tracks "Dallas 4PM" and "Suburban Train" with "Urban Train" as its B-Side which contained some vocals. The last singles to be released were "In My Memory" which is the title track for the album as it only received high ratings in the United States and the opening track "Magik Journey" which opened Tiësto in Concert (2003). On February 2, 2002 Tiësto played nine consecutive hours during the second edition of the Dutch Dimension festival. On February 27 he was awarded a Zilveren ('Silver') Harp music award. The same year he also received a Lucky Strike Dance Award in the category Best DJ Trance/Progressive. In August he became part of Moby's Area2 Tour. For eighteen days he travelled through the United States with artists such as Moby himself, but also David Bowie and Busta Rhymes. After Junkie XL's chart topping success with the Elvis remix "A Little Less Conversation", Tiësto releases a remix of the Elvis track "Burning Love", he was then nominated for a Dance Award by the UK's Muzik Magazine in the category Best Radio 1 Essential Mix. In January 2003 Tiësto received the annual Dutch Popprijs ('Pop Award') during the Noorderslag festival. After touring with Moby, Tiësto remixed two songs from him, "We Are All Made of Stars" and "Extreme Ways" in the same year, having "We Are All Made of Stars" reach #13 in the Hot Dance Club Play. In 2002 he released his first In Search of Sunrise mix to feature a place on its name, In Search of Sunrise 3: Panama. On March 28, 2003; Tiësto, Dieselboy, Bad Boy Bill, and Noel Sanger joined the PlayStation2 Dual Play tour. Tiësto and Noel's appearance began on April 13 and ended on June 6.

2003–2004: Just Be and Olympics

His fame continued to skyrocket in the early 2000s following his six-hour "Tiësto Solo" sets which he performed without other DJs or opening acts. This idea, of one DJ playing alone to a large crowd, was brought to its pinnacle when Tiësto was the first DJ to hold a solo concert in a stadium; on May 10, 2003, he performed for over 25,000 people in Arnhem's GelreDome. This concert was later called Tiësto in Concert, the event was an enormous success. He repeated the same type of concert the following year during two consecutive nights in late October. In addition to holding these two concerts for 35,000 of his fans, he held another concert for a crowd of 20,000 in Hasselt, Belgium the following week. DVDs of both his May 10, 2003 and October 30, 2004 concerts have been released, having the other DVD titled Tiësto in Concert 2. The DVD's show the journey from the first idea to the main event, it features live performances by Andain, Dinand Woesthoff, and Jan Johnston. The event includes live music and dancers performing at different times throughout the set. The theme of the event is a mystical, musical journey around the world based on the theme of Magik. It consists of 200+ minutes of performances with a second disc with special features, It includes a behind-the-scenes looking at The Making Of the event, the music video for his song "Traffic" and TV Commercials for the event. The second DVD has performances from Aqualung and violin player DJ Mason, Micha Klein and the Bulgarian Children of Orpheus choir. During this period he was crowned as "No. 1. DJ in the World" by DJ Magazine (UK) in 2002, 2003, and 2004. In 2004 he released his second artist album Just Be, which featured his first single "Traffic" which is the first non-vocal track to reach number one spot in the Dutch national charts for 23 years. Tiësto and Kirsty Hawkshaw's production and single "Just Be" appeared in the Nip / Tuck: Original TV Soundtrack, and "Love Comes Again" was used in a Coca-Cola commercial in Holland. The track "Sweet Misery" was originally written for Evanescence but it did not meet the deadline for the release of their album. Tiësto's remix of the Kane song "Rain Down on Me" is featured in the game FIFA Football 2004. In support to his Just Be album, he played at Breda, Eindhoven, Utrecht, and Amsterdam; these stops were later named Just Be: Train Tour. On May 20, 2004 he was appointed Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau by Her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.

The Olympic Flame at the 2004 Summer Olympics opening ceremony

The Athens Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (ATHOC) asked Tiësto to perform at the Olympic Games, making him the first DJ to play live on stage at an Olympic Games at the 2004 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in Athens, where he played for 90 minutes. Tiësto flew to Athens in January 2004 to have a meeting with the ATHOC. His Tiësto in Concert DVD caught their attention, after which he was asked to write more tracks based on his opening tune "Adagio for Strings" which could fit in with the Olympic spirit and combine the classical with the modern age; They also requested that he play his own produced music. The first rehearsal was on Saturday August, 7, for an empty stadium; the second rehearsal was on Sunday August 8 with 35,000 volunteers, a lot of the people recognised some tracks like "Traffic" and "Adagio for Strings". The last rehearsal included almost 60,000 people in the stadium which was on Tuesday August 10, there were some technical problems, the mixer broke down, the monitors dropped out a couple of times and the music in the stadium was not continuously on the right volume.

During the parade on Friday August 13, all participating nations introduced their athletes which were over 10,500 in total and 80,000 in the public, only 75,000 knew about dance music. During the course of his performance the Dutch athletes started dancing in front of the DJ booth and had to be moved on by officials. The performance included new tracks produced especially for the Opening Ceremony and songs that were created to complement the spirit and theme of the ceremony. A condensed studio-recorded album of the songs played on the Olympic set was later released, including new songs specially composed for the occasion, entitled Parade of the Athletes in October 2004. In the liner notes, he noted the IOC requested that the music not contain any lyrics as they could be inadvertently misinterpreted. After some success, an unmixed version was also released exclusively on iTunes featuring full length tracks.

2005–2006: Worldwide popularity and touring

In late 2004 he began his touring across Latin America, with his release of In Search of Sunrise 3: Panama in which he gained influence from the sun and sand in summer in 2002, the tour continued in 2005 and Tiësto performed live at Brazil, Argentina, Panama, Peru, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Paraguay, Ecuador and Colombia. Following the tours, In Search of Sunrise 4: Latin America was released in 2005, featuring a second CD for the first time in the In Search of Sunrise series. This was the first DJ mix compilation in almost a year since Nyana and World Leader.

In 2005 his Perfect Remixes Vol. 3 compilation was released through Warlock Records, containing ten tracks which were created during the beginning of his career, between those is Junkie XL, Mauro Picotto and The Roc Project. On August 20, 2005 Verwest took Tiësto in Concert to the US when he played to 16,000 at the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena with Cirque du Soleil dancers. For the second year in a row he performed live at a New Year's Eve/New Year's concert in Las Vegas, Nevada at the Orleans Arena to a sell-out crowd. Despite his four-city US tour being postponed due to the hurricane damage in New Orleans and Miami, playing such cities further expanded and cemented his popularity among mainstream audiences. This was surpassed later in the Summer of 2007 when some 250,000 danced on Ipanema Beach, Brazil, becoming the second largest concert in history. BPM magazine has an annual poll in the US which is unveiled in the WMC, in 2005 Tiësto took the No. 1 spot. The influences of Los Angeles remained with him and would later influence his In Search of Sunrise compilation.

Tiësto at Lush! in Portrush, Northern Ireland on March 5, 2005

On April 16, 2005, Disneyland Resort Paris who had recently inaugurated the Space Mountain: Mission 2, had invited Tiësto to celebrate the launch of the ride by offering a live concert in Disneyland Park. Tiësto performed a special remix of the Space Mountain: Mission 2 soundtrack, as well as many of his own tracks. Tiësto's Space Mountain: Mission 2 concert also featured French deejay Bob Sinclar, the park would re-open for Tiësto's fans so they could stay for the 3 hour concert.

A wax sculpture of Tiësto was placed behind a turntable at Madame Tussauds in Amsterdam where visitors can mix Tiësto's music together. His album Just Be also won an Edison Music Award in the Best Dance Album category in 2005.

Dutch national football is widely viewed on Dutch television and Tiësto is the first artist to inspire it's programme directors to use his music during match coverage. Before each game, "Match of the Day" would be played in the stadium as teams entered the field.

In the fall of 2005 he went on a very successful tour across Central and Eastern Europe where he played once in each country to crowds of 10,000 to 15,000 fans. Stops were made in Ukraine, Slovakia, Serbia, Macedonia, Romania, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Turkey, Croatia, and Poland. Tiësto also performed at the UNITY festival in South Africa where he played a show at the Gallagher Estate Arena in Midrand, a suburb of Johannesburg, to over 18,000 fans. The United States tour that was part of Tiësto in Concert was dwarfed by his appearance at Sensation White in 2006 where he performed to over 45,000 people in the world's biggest dance event in Amsterdam, Holland. The events presale began at 10:00 a.m. on March 10, it was sold out within 2 hours. During 2005 he also made a small cameo appearance in the award-winning film It's All Gone Pete Tong as himself. He also contributed the song "Goldrush" to the PlayStation Portable futuristic racing game Wipeout Pure.

In Search of Sunrise 5: Los Angeles was released in 2006 which was certified Gold in Canada for sales over 50,000 copies. It also charted, peaking #34 in Canada and #59 in Austria. The compilation was launched in the Winter Music Conference at Mansion in South Beach Miami to support his release, Tiësto went on his In Search of Sunrise 5 Asia Tour for more than 3 weeks in Malaysia, Japan, Philippines, South Korea, China, Thailand, Taiwan, and Indonesia. On March 19, 2006, the Formula 1 circus took place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. During the international Grand Prix Tiësto played with the official Renault F1 team pit party. Tiësto prepared a 5 hour set the Saturday night before the beginning of the race on Sunday in which JES sang "As the Rush Comes". On June 10, 2006 Tiësto gave a free open concert of the Volvo Ocean Race in Rotterdam which lasted 75 minutes. Walt Disney Pictures released Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest and the soundtrack included the song He's a Pirate which Tiësto was asked to remix and produced a trance anthem as well as an orchestral remix with the original orchestral break. The Pirates Remixed EP contains the Tiësto remix and a radio edit. The film opened in theatres nationwide on July 7, and the remix was released on July 4. The song later became the first single in Tiësto album Elements of Life which was included as a bonus track, the song charted #7 in the Hot Dance Club Play chart of Billboard and #5 in the Netherlands Dutch Top 40. The song marks the beginning of Elements of Life, his future album at this time.

In September 2006 Tiësto was admitted to hospital after experiencing pain in his chest. He was diagnosed with pericarditis and subsequently he had to cancel a number of shows. With the diagnosis, he was invited to support Dance4Life to help teens who are not aware of the risks of HIV/AIDS.

2007: Club Life, Elements of Life and world tour

On April 6, 2007 Tiësto began presenting a new weekly two-hour radio show called Tiësto's Club Life on Dutch radio station Radio 538. Both 1worldspace and sister XM Satellite Radio in the United States later started broadcasting the show on Channel 81 BPM as part of their Global Domination lineup on Saturday nights. The show is broadcast on Radio 538 on Friday nights between 22:00 CET and midnight and on BPM on Saturday nights between 8:00 p.m. ET and 10:00 p.m. ET. The first hour is also available as a podcast on the Radio 538 website and on iTunes audio podcasts.

Tiësto performing on his Elements of Life World Tour in Amsterdam on March 16, 2007

On April 16, 2007, Tiësto released his third studio album Elements of Life, the album moved 73,000 units in its April release, according to Nielsen SoundScan. During the production of the album Tiësto in several cases sent a demo with the music to certain artists, and they replied back with the lyrics and vocals and other duration times. In the case of Christian Burns from BBMak, Tiësto met him through MySpace and got in contact with him and the production of the single "In the Dark". The album consists of rock, trance and experimental music, which shows the style Tiësto has grown throughout the years since his previous albums which contained lyrics, In My Memory and Just Be. Producer Brian Transeau collaborated with Tiësto in three tracks, he composed "Bright Morningstar" and "Sweet Things", he also performed the vocals in the single "Break My Fall". Together, they produced more tracks which were not released in the album, Tiësto has mentioned they would work again during the coming summer. In December 2007 it was announced that the album was nominated for a Grammy Award, in the category "Best Electronic/Dance Album." The album also received gold certifications in Belgium, Hungary, Netherlands, and Romania. Streamline Studios, an independent game developer and digital content provider for AAA videogames and Black Hole Recordings have formed, a joint venture which will provide sound solutions for digital entertainment including the entire catalog of Black Hole's artists. The first work that Streamline Sound has contributed is on the massively multiplayer online role-playing PC game Sword of the New World: Granado Espada with 17 12" tracks, Forza Motorsport 2 which includes Tom Clouds' track "Told You So" and HoopWorld. A special release party was held at the Heineken Music Hall in Amsterdam on November 3, 2007 for In Search of Sunrise 6: Ibiza. The compilation was awarded in the 2008 WMC Awards in Miami, it won for "Best Full Length DJ Mix CD".

His last three full-length releases broke the 70,000-unit mark, and 2003 2CD compilation Nyana recently hit 87,000, according to Nielsen SoundScan. In support of the album, he embarked on his Elements of Life World Tour which had shows across the world, South and Latin America brought some of the biggest crowds on his January and February South American leg of the tour. On January 7, he played to an amazing 200,000 people in the streets of Ipanema Beach in Rio de Janeiro. On February 16, 2008 he played in India at the Gachibowli Stadium, Hyderabad. It was his first show in South Asia and it was a huge success. Tiësto's performance at Parken Stadium in Copenhagen, Denmark on November 10, 2007 was also sold out. The Copenhagen: Elements of Life World Tour DVD was released in a party which was held on February 29, 2008 from 8 p.m. - 3 a.m. in London at the IndigO2 club.

Tiësto opened a new club-restaurant acquisition with Chinese cuisine, dance music and live entertainment on June 7, 2007 called Cineac. Tiësto inaugurated with his new Cineac Anthem called "Happy People". Guests are welcome to see various modern styles of music mixed by some known top DJs. It was later renamed "The Mansion". Tiësto and Reebok introduced the new 'Tiësto shoe' in November 2007. The shoebox comes with a special limited-edition Tiësto & Reebok CD, containing the Elements of Life album and the bonus disc. Only 1000 pair units were available for sale in the Netherlands. Previously Tiësto & Reebok had released "Run the DJ Tiësto", which consisted of another shoe release with Tiësto as one of the designers. He now owns a line of Reebok RBK shoes and was recently tapped by Microsoft to launch its new Vista operating system for the Dutch market, placing him on par with Robbie Williams, who performed a similar duty in the United Kingdom. The partnership includes a Vista application built especially for Tiësto, which had more than a thousand downloads from his website a day during its first week of availability. It has a Tiësto toolbar for sorting, a plug-in application which allows fans to be informed with the DJ in real-time and get live alerts on gigs, appearances and new music. Tiësto introduced the application at the Jan. 29 Vista launch event in Amsterdam.

2008: Summer Tour and Privilege residency

Tiësto announced his residence at Privilege which was officially recognised by the Guinness World Records as being the largest club in the world. He played in Ibiza every Monday, from July 7 until September 22. The gigs consisted of four hour sets in the style of his In Search of Sunrise series. In 2007 he had released In Search of Sunrise 6: Ibiza which was inspired by the island. The residencies also featured the performance of guest deejays, all selected by Tiësto, such as Chris Lake, Andy Duguid, Mat Zo, Cosmic Gate, Alex Kunnari and Sander van Doorn as well as exclusive appearances by Fonzerelli and Airbase.

Tiësto at the O₂ Arena in London on August 8, 2008

On April 28, Tiësto released Elements of Life: Remixed, a recompilation of the Elements of Life album with all songs except "He's A Pirate" being replaced by remixed versions, and "He's A Pirate" being replaced by "No More Heroes", a joint production with mute performer trio Blue Man Group. The song is a remake of the song "Heroes" in his previous album Parade of the Athletes. In mid-2008, Tiësto announced his In Search of Sunrise: Summer Tour 2008, the tour will be presented by Armani Exchange on May 23 and ending on July 4 at the Bonnaroo Music and Arts Festival on Friday 13, June and ETD Pop Festival in San Francisco. This tour is in support of his upcoming In Search of Sunrise compilation, which is part of a sponsorship partnership, with exclusive apparel and a limited edition 3 CD set. An exclusive best of CD from the DJ’s own imprint Black Hole Recordings, called 10 Years of Black Hole Recordings will be released later in the year. Armani will also sell an exclusive Tiësto branded tour T-shirt, and the artist will perform at three A|X in-stores during the tour. The tour is based on his previously released In Search of Sunrise 6: Ibiza and In Search of Sunrise 7: Asia compilations. On August 8, 2008 Tiësto became the first DJ to perform at the famous O₂ Arena in London as part of his In Search of Sunrise 7 summer tour, the event was sold out with a capacity of 20,000 people, the event hosted him for 5 hours with 200 square metres (239 sq yd) of LED wall, a 200,000 watt sound system, and 300,000 more watts of lighting. Earlier that day, Tiësto had performed in-store at Armani Exchange on Regent Street in central London.

Due to the past 2008 Olympic Games in August, New York’s Ultra Records announced it is a partner in Coca-Cola’s upcoming WE8 bottle campaign, a promotion that celebrates Coca-Cola’s sponsorship of the Olympic Games in Beijing as well as art and music. Eight musicians and eight artists were chosen, including Tiësto, to create tracks inspired by some specially designed Coke bottles. Tiësto produced a song inspired on "Global Harmony" and on Xiao Xue's design of the Coke bottle which is titled Global Harmony; This is not his first time to be involved with the Olympic Games or Coca-Cola, previously Tiësto participated in the 2004 Summer Olympics and also produced a song for Coca-Cola titled "Searching" which was used on a television commercial. "Corona and Lime", a song by Shwayze includes Tiësto's name in the lyrics, "Bump techno by DJ Tiësto".

In November Tiësto took Maroon 5's "Not Falling Apart" as they requested to have him remix a song from their album It Won't Be Soon Before Long which will be included on Call and Response: The Remix Album which features a variety of their favourite artists. The remix of "Not Falling Apart" is the only version of the song included in the remix album which was released on December 8. On New Year's Eve he played at Roseland Ballroom in New York City, the next day he played at the Bell Centre in Montreal, ending his In Search of Sunrise: Summer Tour 2008 and to begin 2009.

2009–2010: Kaleidoscope and tour, Musical Freedom, A New Dawn

Tiësto performing on Queen's Day on April 30, 2009 at Museumplein in Amsterdam

A sole production was prepared for Tiësto from June 8 to September 21 for his return at club Privilege for the second year in a row on Monday nights, after a successful year as a resident in 2008. During his time at Privilege he previewed tracks from his upcoming artist album. On July 31, he was the first DJ to perform for 25,000 people at an exclusive outdoor concert in Victoria Park, London.

On October 6, 2009, Tiësto released his fourth studio album Kaleidoscope. Unlike his earlier albums , which were all mostly trance, Kaleidoscope explores other electronic genres, and is considered Tiesto's most experimental album. The first single "I Will Be Here" featuring Sneaky Sound System being released in July 2009. In its first week, the album reached the Top 10 chart on iTunes.

To release the album he has set up a new record label called Musical Freedom after parting ways with Black Hole Recordings. Tiësto felt that his music was evolving in a new direction and his focus as an artist was moving away from what Black Hole was set up to support. His new tour, sharing the name of his new album, called Kaleidoscope World Tour commenced in late September.

On October 28, 2009, DJ Magazine announced the results of their annual Top 100 DJ Poll, Tiësto placed at #2. The Tiësto song "Elements of Life" can be mixed with the Benny Benassi track "Satisfaction" in the video game DJ Hero. Tiësto has produced a trance-flavoured song on Memphis rap duo Three 6 Mafia's upcoming album Laws of Power called "Feel It," which features Flo Rida and Sean Kingston.

In an interview in Cliché Magazine's February 2010 issue, Tiësto said, "Well, my plans for 2010 are definitely to keep touring! I hit Australia in January, then February, then the UK in March!" He is set to perform five UK arena shows in March and one in Dublin, Ireland.

On April 7, 2010 Tiësto announced that he would start a new compilation series called "A New Dawn" with his own label Musical Freedom. In his interview Tiësto furthermore confirmed that he will no longer have any more involvement with Black Hole Recordings.

Philanthropy

On January 6, 2005, Tiësto performed in an outdoor fundraiser in De Dam, Amsterdam, the event was free and many famous Dutch artists like Dinand Woesthoff, BLØF, Acda & De Munnik, Di-rect, Berget Lewis, Xander de Buisonjé and Trijntje Oosterhuis were involved in it to provide financial aid to the people who suffered from the tsunami in Southern and Southeastern Asia. All profits made of all TV commercials and live broadcast were given to the organisations collecting the relief funds.

In April 2006 Tiësto was named the official worldwide ambassador for the Dance4Life foundation promoting awareness of HIV/AIDS, as the foundation's ambassador he has helped the organisation with fundraising along with recording the track "Dance4life" that he recorded with Maxi Jazz from Faithless. The foundation consists on a better way of living with safe sex in exchange of entertainment to the young crowd. The song was a huge success, peaking for five weeks in #3 and eleven consecutive weeks in the Top 10 of the Dutch Singles Chart, it also reached #5 in Belgium, #6 in Finland and also charting in the UK and Germany. With the successful release of Elements of Life, Tiësto and fashion designer Giorgio Armani collaborated together on a limited edition Tiësto T-shirt available at Armani Exchange stores. His single "Sweet Things" comes with the shirt including an exclusive "A|X Remix" by Tom Cloud which shows the great influence Tiësto has in fashion culture. The charity raised over US$300,000. On November 29, 2008 artists like Tiësto himself, Sied van Riel, Leon Bolier, Joop, and MC Gunner presented a concert at The Sand, Amsterdam promoted by Dance4Life, the sales from the event will go to the foundation to support next year's Schools4Life project.

Personal life

Until early 2006 Tiësto had a relationship with Dutch model Monique Spronk. On January 10, 2008, Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf announced that Tiësto and his girlfriend Stacey Blokzijl were going to get married on October 10, 2008 in Cartagena, Colombia. He proposed to her in December 2007 while they were visiting Mauritius. Tiësto cancelled his wedding for October 10, because he claimed to have a busy schedule and too little time for the preparations. During Christmas 2008, Stacey broke off the engagement due to the constant delays to their wedding.

InTheBooth

InTheBooth is the official members-only fansite of Tiësto. It was launched July 17, 2009 and is "the only way to get access to pre-sale tickets for Tiësto's global tour dates before anyone else". The site also consists of exclusive updates, new music, videos, behind the scenes clips from Tiësto's shows, full streaming of concerts and his entire back catalogue of music as well as members only merchandise. Additional features include a blog by Tiësto and an area where new music is debuted long before its release.

Discography

Main article: Tiësto discography

• In My Memory (2001)
• Just Be (2004)
• Parade of the Athletes (2004)
• Elements of Life (2007)
• Kaleidoscope (2009)

Tours

• 2002: Area2 Tour
• 2004: Just Be: Train Tour
• 2005: Tiësto in Concert: North America Tour 2005
• 2005: Central Eastern European Tour 2005
• 2006: In Search of Sunrise 5 Asia Tour
• 2007–2008: Elements of Life World Tour
• 2008: In Search of Sunrise: Summer Tour 2008
• 2009–2010: Kaleidoscope World Tour

See also

• List of awards and nominations received by Tiësto
• Tiësto's Club Life

External links

• Official website
• Tiësto at IMDb
• Artist Site at Ultra Records