Sibelian is the brainchild of Stephen John Svanholm. Stephen was brought up in the UK and cut his teeth in the music world playing lead guitar for british funk/thrash-metal band Ignorance, who released two albums through the american Metal Blade Records and toured Europe and America. After leaving Ignorance he returned to education to study classical music and train as an opera singer. This culminated with two years at the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester as a postgraduate.
Stephen left college in 1999 and started singing professionally as an opera singer and also writing and recording Sibelian material. He relocated to Sweden in 2001, but has recently returned to the UK.
In the summer of 2008 Stephen contributed opera parts and choral vocals to the new Cradle of Filth album
Sibelian releases: "The Soul Rush" full-length CD (2004) on Magnatune. The song "The Sin Eater" was featured on the Cold Meat Industry sampler CD "Flowers made of Snow" (2005), and the song "Wish-fulfilling Jewel" will appear on a new compilation of fantasy-inspired music from Waerloga Records/Radio Rivendell spring 2007.
"Truly fascinating pieces of work! Soulful, powerful, emotional...." Donna Liguria, Online Marketing, artistopia.com
"If you want to hear something truly DIFFERENT, what I might call ‘new-age opera’, virtually a genre unto itself, something that will take you away to a completely different place, away in the woods with the elves & faeries of the night .. on the condition that you concentrate on little else for 10 minutes, then this music is awesome. Powerful and majestic, operatic, emotional and epic, dark and mysterious are adjectives that come close." Jeza, Scout at Besonic
â€...an extraordinary piece of work†Carrie Booth, A&R Instant Karma Records
"Big beautiful songs and arrangements, like an audio movie! Very majestic and ambient with wonderful vocals." Bill Compeau-artist relations-www.firewirestrings.net