Artpage of Lara Swift. Photography, Manipulations, Drawings from a young female artist.

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Tuomas Holopainen

(taken from Wikipedia.com)

Tuomas Lauri Johannes Holopainen (born December 25, 1976, in Kitee, Finland) is the keyboardist and main songwriter in the Finnish symphonic metal band Nightwish. He has also played in the bands Nattvindens Grat and Darkwoods My Betrothed. His current side project is the gothic-doom metal band For My Pain.... He currently plays in the band of Timo Rautiainen.

Holopainen started studying in a music college majoring in clarinet and minoring in piano. He has played various kinds of music, including classical, jazz and metal. He played in several bands, including recording keyboards for three albums with the black metal band Darkwoods My Betrothed, before coming up with the idea for a band of his own, where he would write all the music. That was the birth of Nightwish in July of 1996, around a camp fire. He then asked Emppu Vuorinen and Tarja Turunen to join what then was but an acoustic project. After hearing Turunen's strong voice, Tuomas decided to turn Nightwish into a metal act.

Nightwish's first release, Angels Fall First, came in 1997, but it was in 1998, after the release of Oceanborn, that Holopainen's compositional skills reached full acclaim worldwide. In Century Child, Once and Dark Passion Play Holopainen began collaborating with symphonic orchestras from Finland and the United Kingdom.

Nightwish released the DVD End of an Era, cointaining their last concert with Tarja Turunen, in Hartwall Areena, Helsinki 2005.

The new Nightwish release Dark Passion Play is now out as of September 2007 with a lead-in single, Eva, released on May 25, 2007, an internet and radio release, this was followed by 2 normal singles Amaranth and Bye Bye Beautiful. Tuomas has said that Dark Passion Play was the album that saved his life.

Holopainen is a Disney, J. R. R. Tolkien and Dragonlance fan, with some of his songs containing references to these worlds.

Holopainen was a producer of the Silentium's album Sufferion - Hamartia of Prudence (2003).

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The Official Summer's Over Page

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(From a packet of letters found in an old trunk stored in my great grandmother's attic in the early 1980's.)

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9 September 1851

Dear Celeste,


My good friend, I cannot tell you how it pains me to write you. This morning we laid dear Marie to rest. What a terrible ending to such a short and tragic life!

Since Papa has died, she has been plagued with unending and unendurable afflictions. Despite the numerous draughts given by the physician and the tender care of Aunt Margaret, she wasted away before our very eyes. When she passed I scarcely recognized her. Though she was but sixteen years of age, I declare she looked like an old woman. Her skin was brittle and so was her hair. She was all but a bag of bones.

The rector declared from the pulpit that world is but a travail of tears, and that Marie is better out of it. I must work hard to believe him. She will be laid to rest with father and mother in the family vault where she shall sleep safe until the last trump sounds.

But, oh Celeste! How can it be that she has died? Our little sister is gone forever. What a cruel world this is! Pray God forgive me for I cannot help but wonder how He could let her die after all she endured.


In great despair,
Elizabeth


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18 September 1851

Dear Celeste,


My hand shakes so as I write this that I wonder if you shall be able to make out the words. I cannot tell you if we are the victims of a horrible, jest or suffering the onslaught of something far worse.

My tale is so incredible I fear you will wonder if I have gone mad. Please, please believe me that the words I write are true. You must believe me or I shall think I have gone mad!

If you are to understand this letter at all I must begin at the beginning.

First, though I can hardly bear to say the words, I must tell you that our peaceful little crypt in St. Thomas's has been defiled. You know that the rectory is but a few steps from the church and that Parson can clearly see the church windows from his bedroom. Indeed I believe he finds comfort in looking at the steeple rising out of the churchyard, a promise of resurrection to the dead that surround it. But I cannot digress or you will think my mind wanders.

To the facts, then. For several nights he has heard scraping sounds while lying in bed. He has oft times left his room to wander the churchyard seeking to drive off anyone that might be defiling the graves. You know how horrible children can be, and there are those who steal bodies for medical experiments. Still, he found nothing to account for the sounds, and began to think it might be his imagination.

Well, it happened one night, after he met with the ladies of the altar guild, that he was in the sanctuary much later than usual He heard the scraping once again and followed it to its source. It was to our tiny chapel that he came.

He peered through the bars of the crypt and could just make out that something was amiss. He left the chapel to fetch a lamp and when he returned he found the door ajar and Marie's casket half out of it. When he entered the small room, he found all in chaos. Mother's coffin had been turned on its side and pushed to face the back wall. Uncle Edward, (her father's brother was it not?) was standing all but upright in the corner. Mothers three little infants were scattered all about the room, and father's casket was standing on its head in the very center of the crypt.

I can tell you that the rector had quite a fright. He called us that very night and bade us come to see what had been wrought. He thought we might know who should wish to defile our family grave so.

It is plain to a reasonable mind that some human agency has committed this great evil, but I must tell you that our mother's sister, Margaret, is laying the blame on the devil himself. How strange to see that grim paragon crumble in the face of this attack.

Pray for us, dear heart. I would you were closer than Derby tonight.


Yours in faith,
Elizabeth


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25 September 1851

My Dear Celeste!


I scribble these words in the carriage as we go home from yet another midnight summons. Celeste, it has happened again! My last letter, which I sent less than a week past, must barely have arrived and now I am penning another.

The parson has called us to the church to see how again our dead have been disturbed. Father's casket was again standing on end, and mother's was again against the wall. Uncle Edward had been cast again into the corner, while Marie was lying across the door. The three little ones were standing in the center of the crypt in a little circle.

Who can be taking such time to arrange the dead in this queer fashion? And how can they be doing it so quickly?

It took four men to set things aright after the last event. Father's coffin, as you recall, had a lead lining and mother's was a heavy wood. Uncle Edward was more than six feet tall and had a second, inner lining which also made his casket very heavy. For want of space we placed the heavier coffins against the walls, and then put poor Marie atop Father while the smaller children were stacked upon Mother. This sorrowful task took the better part of two hours.

But the Parson, ever vigilant now, says he checked the crypt no more than half an hour before he discovered the latest disturbance. Surely a crew of men cannot be committing this crime.

What can it all mean?


write soonest,
Elizabeth


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5 October 1851

Celeste! Celeste!


You must come home immediately. I have learned the truth and it is so dreadful I find it all but impossible to speak it!

Last night as I stood watch, reading my missal with the light of a dozen candles, I swear I did look but look at the crypt and it was as it should be. The next moment, when I raised my eyes again, all the caskets were stacked against the door, closing it off entirely.

It was like staring into the faces of people fleeing a sinking ship or running from a room on fire. They were pressed against the iron door so hard it buckled, and indeed some of the smaller coffins were somewhat crushed.

No human agency has caused this horror and I can think of no Godly force that would handle our dead so. How can evil make play on holy ground?

You must come to me, must help me to make sense of it all. If you do not, I fear I will go mad.


Elizabeth


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9 October 1851

Dear Celeste:


Robert has written me and rebuked me quite sternly for importuning you to come. As dire as our straits are, I have come to agree with him that you may not leave Derby until you are safely delivered of your child. I do not know what I was thinking. You must obey your husband and stay far from this dreadful place.

Jacob and David did not believe what I told them of the night I stood watch. They believe that I must have fallen asleep, and in my sleep have missed the perpetrators of this crime disturbing the coffins again. This is not so! Please do not believe them if they should write you.

I am sure there is an agency of evil defiling us in this way. I must tell you since that evening that I have been plagued in my dreams by visions of Marie.

She comes to me, and I see her as she was when she died. How horrible and unnatural she seems in my memories! How she begs me to visit her in the land of the dead!

I find myself remembering when she was young. She was always father's favorite if you recall. She became especially close to him after Mother died. How often they used to sit together by the fire, talking until late in the night. She was always spared his temper until the year before his death. I never knew what caused the rift between them, but I know she suffered for it.

And do you recall Margaret? How unnatural she is! While Marie was alive she was ever attentive to her, always at her bedside while she was ill. How often she said Marie looked just like our mother, her own sister's child. Now she lays the current contretemps at Marie's door. She swears our pretty Marie was the devil's own and it is she disturbs the crypt!

I had thought that Marie's troubles would be at an end, but it seems even in death she will have no rest. I pray that I will discover the solution to this mystery. I cannot bear to think of her suffering further. Margaret must be mad.

I should tell you that the coffins are now displaced nightly, and the parish calls them the Dancing Dead. The scandal has isolated us from everyone, and even the Parson seems to have withdrawn from our company.

When will this horror end?


Your Loving Sister
Elizabeth


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13 October 1851

Dear Celeste:


Marie has come to me, has begged me to help her. By the time you receive this letter I will have done as she has asked. I cannot bear it any more.

In my dreams, as you know, I used to see her. But in the last few days she has begun to speak while I am awake. I now understand that her enmity for Aunt Margaret is keeping her from eternal rest. She has begged me to bring Aunt Margaret to her that they may be reconciled.

Sometimes I hear her whispering something about Father, but I cannot make out the words. Perhaps she regrets the rift that grew between them and cannot now make peace.

Aunt Margaret swears vicious lies against Marie, says she sinned against our mother with our father! I cannot make sense of her words.

What can that mean? How can a daughter, a girl as cloistered and protected as our Marie, sin against anyone? She never said a cross word to mother while she was alive. Its plain to me that Marie will not rest while these strange stories are told.

How odd, is it not, that Marie and Margaret should be at odds? Since father's death Margaret has cared for Marie, and now it appears that Margaret hates her. I am so confused. But Marie seems to understand. She tells me she understands everything now.

This evening I will give our Aunt a sleeping draught, and then I will take her to the chapel. I will not let Marie suffer this torment any longer.

You know I loved her so.


Trust in God,
Elizabeth


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31 October 1851

Dearest Celeste


I know that Elizabeth has been corresponding with you for several weeks. I must tell you that our dear sister is past writing to anyone now.

Last night it appears that she took Margaret to the chapel. You are probably already aware of the grisly crimes that have been committed in our private tomb. You may not be aware that Margaret, having lost her senses in her declining years, has been blaming Marie's spirit for the trouble we've endured in the last weeks. Apparently Elizabeth sought to reassure her.

They arrived at the chapel after dark. I believe Margaret was taken ill in the carriage. The Parson said she was all but fainting when he left them at prayer in the chapel.

When the Parson returned just a few hours later, he found the new gate we had installed had been pulled from its hinges.

The caskets had been distributed throughout the chapel with only father's remaining in the crypt. Elizabeth was in a dead faint and Margaret had disappeared entirely. Or, so we thought.

Those soul-less hellions who have plagued us for several weeks had murdered her and placed her in the coffin with Marie.

I have ordered the coffins in the chapel removed and decently buried in several locations around the churchyard. There is no peace or comfort to be found in our family crypt.

Elizabeth seems unable to speak of her experience, or even to speak at all. She is a living statue, without the need to eat or sleep. She is dying before our eyes. I pray she will awake from this strange state before she too must be buried in the churchyard.

I know not why such horrors have been visited upon us. Pray that they are at an end.


Your Brother,
Jacob