on 5 September 2011. She toured with the band in South America, singing "Everwake" during concerts. Solo career, The Gentle Storm and VUUR (2012–present) Van Giersbergen released a solo album, Everything Is Changing, in 2012, followed by Drive in 2013. On 22 April 2014, Arjen Anthony Lucassen revealed that his next project would be a collaboration with Van Giersbergen, their third work together after the Ayreon albums Into the Electric Castle and 01011001. He described it as "an epic double concept album, a combination of 'classical meets metal' and 'acoustic folk'." The project is named The Gentle Storm, with their first album released in 2015. Later in 2015, Van Giersbergen collaborated again with Lucassen, portraying the character of Fear in the musical The Theater Equation, consisting of three shows of a semi-staged version of the Ayreon album The Human Equation (Mikael Åkerfeldt originally recorded the vocals for Fear on the album). In February 2016, she released a collaboration album with the Icelandic band Árstíðir called Verloren Verleden. On 1 December 2016, she announced the creation of her new band, named VUUR, with musicians coming mostly from The Gentle Storm live band. Their debut album was released in 2017. In September 2017, she was a performer in the 'Ayreon Universe' concert series at 013 in Tilburg. In 2018 she performed on "Amongst Stars" from Finnish Heavy Metal band Amorphis' album Queen of Time, including appearing on the official music video. She also performed in two concerts alongside Residentie Orkest The Hague covering songs from Van Giersbergen's whole career, later released in the live album Symphonized in October. In 2019, she toured the Netherlands on an acoustic theatre tour 'Inchecken', performing a career-spanning setlist alongside VUUR bandmate Ferry Duijsens in over 40 Dutch theatres, touring from January to March. She also joined Amorphis and Delain for their 2019 North American tour, performing a solo setlist as well as performing "Amongst Stars" alongside Amorphis during their set. On 16 November, she announced a solo album titled The Darkest Skies Are the Brightest, set for release on 26 February 2021. Musical roots and influences Van Giersbergen's musical roots are in classical and jazz music, but she enjoys rock and pop the most. Some of her main influences are Prince, Ella Fitzgerald and Thom Yorke (Radiohead). Personal life On 20 February 2005 she gave birth to a son named Finn, whom she had with her