Tuomas Holopainen
Tuomas Holopainen (born December 25, 1976, in Kitee, Finland) is the keyboardist and main songwriter in the Finnish symphonic power metal band Nightwish. He has also played in the bands Nattvindens Gråt and Darkwoods My Betrothed. A current side project is gothic band For My Pain....
Biography
Holopainen started to study in a musical college majoring in clarinet and minoring in piano. He played in several bands, before coming up with the idea of a band of his own, where he would write all the music. That was the birth of Nightwish in the summer of 1996. He then asked Emppu Vuorinen and Tarja Turunen to join what then was but an acoustic project. After hearing Tarja's strong lyrical voice, Tuomas decided to turn Nightwish into a metal act.
Nightwish's first release, Angels Fall First, came in 1997, but it was only in 1998, after the release of Oceanborn, that Holopainen's incredible compositional skills reached full acclaim worldwide. Another four releases followed: Wishmaster - 2000, Over the Hills and Far Away(EP) - 2001, Century Child - 2002 and Once - 2004. In the last two, Holopainen took Nightwish to a whole new level by collaborating with symphonic orchestras from Finland and England. The next Nightwish release is expected in early 2007.
Tuomas Holopainen's lyrics are like a diary, all revolving around his inner-most feelings and passions. Nightwish texts are well-known for their love, fantasy, nature inspired themes. They are also very poetic, most of them being able to stand on their own as full poems.