Symfonia

Symfonia were an international power metal supergroup formed around 2009 and 2010 at the initiative of Finnish guitarist Timo Tolkki, then newly departed from Stratovarius, the band he had founded and led for more than two decades. The idea was to gather experienced musicians of the genre around a new project, with freedom in the writing and without the weight of a prior discography. The line-up carried real weight: on vocals, Brazilian singer André Matos, formerly of Angra and Shaman and one of melodic metal's most recognisable voices; on drums, German Uli Kusch, a veteran of Helloween and Masterplan; on bass, Finn Jari Kainulainen, Tolkki's bandmate for many years in Stratovarius; and on keyboards, Mikko Härkin, formerly of Sonata Arctica. Five musicians drawn from four of the most influential power metal bands of Europe and South America. Their only album, In Paradisum, appeared in 2011 and was received as a solid, cohesive record, closer to classic melodic power metal than to any experiment — broad choruses, keyboards in the foreground, melodic guitar and Matos's characteristic delivery. For many listeners it is a valuable document precisely because it captures the meeting of Tolkki and Matos, two central figures of the genre on different continents. The group did not last. Still in 2011, Tolkki announced the end of Symfonia, citing financial difficulties with touring as the reason not to continue. The project was thus confined to a single record. On 8 June 2019 André Matos died at the age of 47, which turned In Paradisum into one of the last studio recordings of his career and gave the album a valedictory dimension no one foresaw when it was released.