Howard Shore began writing the score for the massive multiplayer online role-paying game, Soul of the Ultimate Nation (SUN) in the summer of 2004. In November of that year, Shore was in Moscow conducting The Lord of the Rings Symphony at the Kremlin with the National Philharmonic of Russia and Victor Popov's Academy of Choral Arts. Following the Moscow concerts he traveled with the orchestra and chorus for another three concerts in Tokyo.

"I was still composing the music for SUN at this time and while in Japan I decided I wanted to write the piece specifically for this orchestra and chorus," said Shore. "I wanted the chorus to sing in ancient Korean as a way to express the world of SUN. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to bring together the western and eastern concepts at play. The pieces were composed as tone poems to express the different characters, cultures and the world of this wonderfully detailed game."

The game SUN has gradually made its way around the world although the music has only been released in parts of Asia. Now for the first time, as the second Collector's Edition series of the composer's work, Howard Shore's original score for SUN is available to a worldwide audience.