“It’s all about creating wondrous and enchanting soundcapes!” Tuomas Holopainen

They are uncommon rare...
Those unusual, unique and enchanting diamonds washed ashore by the stormy, blustering ocean. They shine brighter than the stars and a magical spell seems to live inside that sparkling, so breathtakingly seductive adornment. NIGHTWISH are one of these adorable virtuosic jewels: Beyond comparison, sensual, touching and overwhelming beautifully. With an exceptional musical mélange combining bombastic, epically and opulent metal elements with symphonic melodies full of melancholic, romantic and dreamy moments, NIGHTWISH created their own style long ago: Often imitated, never duplicated! Mastermind Tuomas Holopainen is not just an excellent and unique composer, even more he understands from the beginning on to fulfill his musical passion - he is a blessed visionary! Never before a band has merged elements of classic and metal so homogeneous and created such a bombastic and powerful result They have always been ahead of their time. Among the bands ever to storm the metal genre, to take the Symphonic Olympus by assault and to cut their own path, NIGHTWISH have come to be known as the most influential band worldwide in their genre.

A view back
With their last masterpiece “Imaginaerum” NIGHTWISH could open a new chapter in their career. It was an amazing journey into into a charismatic composers heart. Full of passionate visions, dreams and wishes. “It all started during the spring of 2007 when we were finishing the mixings for `Dark Passion Play´”, says Tuomas. “I remember vividly listening through the songs and thinking what would be the next chapter in NIGHTWISH’S chronicles? When I look back at our catalogue, I see the evolution of the band, how the stories and musical landscapes evolve from one album to the next one, to the next one, to this present moment. During that time I strongly felt we need the next chapter to be something no-one`s ever done before in music. Something so big, crossover, detailed, innovative and nuts that it would leave the band, and hopefully the people experiencing it, completely awestruck. Love it or hate it, but awestruck nonetheless”, does he point out uncompromising.“

And now?
The album is done. The movie is done. And also the soundtrack of this extraordinary movie is done so far. It seems like NIGHTWISH completed their gorgeous package by now. “What can I say?”, does mastermind Tuomas laugh and a kind of magical sparkle glimmers in his eyes. “It’s really amazing to be honest. We just saw the finished movie for the first time with the whole band in Montreal. It was a remarkable situation because we went to hell and back trying to get this movie finished”, admits the passionate songwriter. “It took more than five years of making and at some points we felt depressed and desperated but I always had the confidence in getting the thing done. We did never loose the faith in the whole project. And now that it’s finally finished and at least it worked really good. We feel very proud about it. It’s an absolutely relieving feeling!”

Enchanting soundcapes
It’s an overwhelming feeling to listen to this complex orchestral masterpiece filled with deep touching emotions and moreover to discover all those deeper meanings “IMAGINAERUM” has to give in the end - separating what has been and what will become. The Finnish flautist Petri Alanko, who studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki and subsequently at the Freiburg Music Academy in Germany, was the chosen one to compose this soundtrack based on Tuomas inspiration and visionary suggestions. “Meanwhile I’ve been listened a lot to the soundtrack and it’s still catches and fascinates me. I just gave all the tracks to Petri and told him; `Go ahead and fool around with the songs. Make them all alive in your own way.´ And to me it feels like the songs were reborn somehow, in a way that the movie requires them to be reborn. It might be a bit of a surprise for some people, who don’t understand, what the soundtrack is like. There are no songs in the original way or singing - it’s all about creating wondrous and enchanting soundcapes!”

An act of faith
There’s no disguise. Letting someone else work on your ideas also means a huge act of faith but Tuomas never had any doubts. “Working together with Petri was fantastic and no problem at any time”, he explains. “It was about a year ago, the album was just about to come out, the tour was about to start and I didn’t find the time to do this. So Petri and I talked about the idea of the sountrack and I really trusted the guy from the beginning on. I talked with him about every single track and about the images behind the songs. Petri understood my visions immediately and sent me some demos of the things he has done so far. So we were in close contact the whole time.” Finally it wasn’t like a big surprise. “Absolutely not”, does the finnish artist point out. “The main focus was on the movie itself. The way Petri did all the songs was by watching the scenes of the movie, see how the scenes would work with the music and just try to write the Score. So there was this visional aspect all the time. Every single song on the soundtrack refers to the scenes of the movie.”

Big bombastic sounds
But that’s for sure: Tuomas will never forget the first time he did listen to the finished composition on the whole. “That was just overwhelming and breathtaking”, states Tuomas and he still seems on fire. “I thought this guy has really done an amazing job, there is nothing I can add. We wanted some really big sounds and it even got bigger and more bombastic than we ever expected it to be!”