TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA is a project assembled by SAVATAGE collaborator and producer Paul O' Neill. Following an obvious Christmas theme, the debut album 'Christmas Eve And Other Stories', which features SAVATAGE's 'Christmas Eve- Sarajevo 12-24' lifted directly from their 'Dead Winter Dead' opus, is a collection of diverse styles including hard rock and blues and interspersed with acoustic and choral interludes.

The main protagonists are SAVATAGE personnel vocalist Jon Oliva, guitarist Al Pitrelli and bassist John Middleton assisted by drummer Jeff Plate.

TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA managed some live dates in America in late 1997 as TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA pushed sales of the debut and follow up album 'The Christmas Attic' past gold certification thus outstripping sales of any SAVATAGE album. Indeed, the debut would continue to sell past the million platinum marker.

With Pittrelli departing SAVATAGE in 2000 for pastures new in MEGADETH a previous encumbant of SAVATAGE, guitarist Alex Skolnick, took over the role for TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA's 2000 East coast American tour. The band novelly split into two to satisfy demand with the holiday period seeing a 'West' and 'East' version of the band. Alongside Skolnick the 'West' band included SAVATAGE men guitarist Chris Caffrey and drummer Jeff Plate with vocalist Daryl Pediforde, violinist Mark Wood and keyboard player Bob Kinkel. The 'East' band was anchored by SAVATAGE bassist Johnny Lee Middleton with MEAT LOAF guitarist Damon La Scott, fellow six stringer Jorge Cintrada and vocalists Tommy Farese and Michael Lanning.

TRANS-SIBERIAN ORCHESTRA played to over 400,000 fans in 2003, being ranked as one of the top fifteen grossing concert tours of 2003 by 'Pollstar' magazine. The October 2004 album 'The Lost Christmas Eve' racked up 31,902 US sales in its first week to debut at no. 26 on the Billboard charts. By this stage 'Christmas Eve And Other Stories' was closing in on double platinum territory whilst 'The Christmas Attic' too was fast approaching a million sales.

Concert dates across Eastern North America throughout November and December saw the employment of the TESTAMENT and SAVATAGE credited Alex Skolnick on guitar. In mid December 'The Lost Christmas Eve' was certified with gold sales status, recognising over half a million US sales. The live band for 2005 saw David Zablidowsky installed on bass guitar, a man citing credits with Z02, JOAN JETT and OCTOBER THORNS.