ABOUT
Aatraus is a composer of evocative orchestral and modern classical piano music, usually employing a lot of strong melodies, with an oeuvre ranging from mellow piano compositions to epic orchestrations. While influenced by many composers of several different genres, Aatraus also takes inspiration from nature, sci-fi, love, loss, and many other themes, creating music in his own style. Nowadays Aatraus works closely with video game developers and has expanded to production music and sound design. Though not a full-time composer yet, he has long been hoping to elevate his passion into a career.
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Aatraus is Sami Lehtiö, an entirely self-taught Finnish musician located in Tampere. Lehtiö started learning the piano at age seven, first dabbling in composing in upper secondary school, back then writing songs for his power metal band. Orchestral composing came significantly later, and the first composition wasn’t finished until some seven years later. In all he has composed around 80 songs, and written lyrics for over 30. These numbers include dozens of completely unreleased songs, which may or may not feature on Aatraus-related projects in the future.
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Previously working on four different music projects, all different genres and styles (pop, rock, metal, and orchestral), Lehtiö is an avid learner, constantly trying to find ways to improve. His weapon of choice is, of course, the piano (when he’s not bellowing out vocals), using his relatively primitive home studio to produce all of his music. Though the production side is not yet quite there, composing itself seems to come quite easy for him.
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Aatraus was first launched in early 2018 when a multitude of melodies and compositions written in the last couple of years did not come to fit into any of the other projects. Aatraus was then supposed to consist of simple piano compositions only, tailored to be used as background music available to game developers. As the project grew, most of these old ideas grew obsolete and were since abandoned for a grander vision to take shape.
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Expedition, which was to be Aatraus’ first album, was in the works for a long time, but production issues delayed it on many occasions, and ultimately the project was abandoned. This was largely due to the emergence of many other unrelated projects, such as new singles, EPs, and commissions, that diverted the focus away from the album.
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Aatraus is also trying to build a name for himself in the production music side of things, and is already tagged on as a composer and sound designer in a new game development trio. Aatraus is also available for commissions in composing (such as theme songs) or sound design. If you have a project in need of sound, get in touch. You can also license existing Aatraus tracks to be used in any kind of media.
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