Saara Aalto

Originally named Saara Sofia Aalto, the Finnish performer Saara Aalto works as a singer, songwriter, and voice actress. Her luminous, nimble vocal style drew widespread European notice after she entered The Voice of Finland and The X Factor (U.K.) during the 2010s.

She entered the world in Oulunsalo in 1987, where piano study began early and songwriting started at five. Victory in a children’s songwriting contest arrived at eleven during the Kotka Maritime Festival. At fourteen, a televised Charlotte Church performance prompted formal voice lessons. Music coursework continued through secondary school, after which she relocated to Helsinki for training at the Sibelius Academy and the Helsinki Pop & Jazz Conservatory. In her early twenties she took on multiple stage roles with the Helsinki City Theatre, among them Dorothy in Wicked. Two independent albums appeared in 2011 on her Yume Records imprint: the English-language Blessed with Love and the seasonal Enkeleitä: Angels.

Also in 2011 she sought to represent Finland at the Eurovision Song Contest, finishing second with “Blessed with Love.” The following year she placed second in the inaugural season of The Voice of Finland, winning admirers through performances of “Over the Rainbow” and Heart’s “Barracuda.” She supplied the Finnish voice of Anna for Disney’s 2013 animated feature Frozen. Around the same time she cultivated an audience in China after competing in a Mandarin-language song contest that showcased her multilingual abilities. In May 2013 she opened for opera legend José Carreras in Shanghai, and that summer she issued the all-Mandarin album Ai De Zhu Fu. Another English-language set, You Had My Heart, arrived in 2013 and included the French-language track “Je Suis Malade.” A 2015 duet album with Teemu Roivainen, Tonight, followed.

Her second Eurovision bid came in 2016, again resulting in second place for Finland with “No Fear.” That same year she reached the runner-up position on the thirteenth season of The X Factor U.K. The exposure led to recording contracts with Sony Music in both the U.K. and Finland.