27 Facts About Tuomas Holopainen

Tuomas Lauri Johannes Holopainen was born on 25 December 1976 and is a Finnish musician, songwriter, and record producer, best known as the primary songwriter, keyboardist, and a co-founding member of symphonic metal band Nightwish.

Tuomas Holopainen has stated that his songwriting is influenced by harmonic film music.

Tuomas Holopainen later recorded an album with them as a full member in 2020.

Tuomas Holopainen collaborated with the gothic metal band For My Pain.

Tuomas Holopainen co-wrote the music for Nightwish's own film, Imaginaerum, released in November 2012.

Tuomas Holopainen released his first solo album Music Inspired by the Life and Times of Scrooge in 2014.

Tuomas Holopainen was born in Kitee on Christmas Day 1976.

Tuomas Holopainen's parents were entrepreneur Pentti Holopainen, and Kirsti Nortia-Holopainen, a former music and English teacher in a small elementary school.

Tuomas Holopainen has an older sister named Susanna who works as a surgeon-urologist, and an older brother named Petri who is an autopsy assistant.

Tuomas Holopainen's mother signed him up for piano class in school when he was seven years old, and he later studied clarinet, tenor saxophone, piano and music theory for twelve years at a music college.

Originally aspiring to be a biologist, Tuomas Holopainen had no interest in metal until his school foreign exchange partner took him to see Metallica and Guns N' Roses in America, and he became hooked.

In 2006 Tuomas Holopainen said that he is "not religious, but an open-minded, thinking individual".

Tuomas Holopainen married Finnish pop singer Johanna Kurkela on 28 October 2015.

Tuomas Holopainen played in several bands, including recording keyboards for three albums with black metal band Darkwoods My Betrothed and playing with Dismal Silence, Nattvindens Grat and Sethian.

Tuomas Holopainen was then conscripted for the Finnish Army, where he managed to earn a position as the clarinet player of the military band, which spared him from gun-related activities.

In July 1996, a 19-year-old Tuomas Holopainen began thinking of starting a band of his own, for which he would write the music and play keyboards.

Tuomas Holopainen asked Emppu Vuorinen and classmate Tarja Turunen to join what was then an acoustic project, with music he wrote during his time in the army.

In Nightwish's fourth studio album Century Child, released in 2002, Tuomas Holopainen began collaborating with symphonic orchestras from Finland and the United Kingdom, which was a change in the band's music and Tuomas Holopainen's style of composition, and allowed for more freedom with additional instruments.

Tuomas Holopainen has said that writing film scores is something he would like to do in the future.

In 2007, Tuomas Holopainen played keyboards with Finnish punk band Kylahullut on their EP Lisaa persetta rattipaille.

Tuomas Holopainen can be heard singing with the chorus on both of these releases.

Tuomas Holopainen was credited for helping to create the Finnish trance artist Orkidea's third album, Metaverse in 2008, for the collaboration in Orkidea's version of Nightwish's song "Bye Bye Beautiful".

Tuomas Holopainen originally confirmed that he was producing a solo project in 2012.

Tuomas Holopainen composed the song "Lohtu" for year 2015 concert "Live Aid ULS2017".

Tuomas Holopainen is a source of inspiration for other bands, especially within symphonic, gothic and power metal.

For subsequent releases up until the arrival of bassist and male vocalist Marko Hietala, the band has recruited sessional male vocalists, as Tuomas Holopainen preferred to focus entirely on his keyboards.

Tuomas Holopainen performed the whispering in the background on While Your Lips Are Still Red, but he does not do this live.