Anette Olzon

Born in Katrineholm, Sweden in 1971, Anette Olzon first established herself in the melodic rock and hard rock scenes with Alyson Avenue, which she joined in the late 1980s and with which she recorded Presence of Mind (2000) and Omega (2004). Her clear voice, oriented toward direct melodic lines rather than operatic lyricism, led her into symphonic metal when she became Nightwish’s vocalist in 2007. With the Finnish band she contributed to the albums Dark Passion Play (2007) and Imaginaerum (2011), touring major international rock and metal stages until her departure in 2012. After that period Olzon pursued a more personal musical path between hard rock, melodic metal and pop-rock accents on Shine (2014), and moved to a noticeably heavier metal direction on Strong (2021) and Rapture (2024). At the same time she has taken part in numerous collaborative projects, notably the duo The Dark Element with Jani Liimatainen, documented by The Dark Element (2017) and Songs the Night Sings (2019), and Allen/Olzon with Russell Allen on Worlds Apart (2020) and Army of Dreamers (2022). She has also participated in the Japanese group Ultima Grace.