Saara Aalto

Saara Sofia Aalto (born 2 May 1987) is a Finnish singer, songwriter and voice actress.

In 1998 at age 11, she won the Kotka Maritime Festival song contest for children with one of her own compositions.

Aalto also won the Charlotte Church international singing competition, organised in US, in 2003 with her own composition.

Aalto represented Finland in the Golden Stag International Song Contest in Romania in 2004.

She went to the Madetoja secondary school for music, where she graduated in 2005.

After graduation, she moved to Helsinki to study music at the Sibelius Academy, and at the same time also studied singing in the Helsinki Pop & Jazz Conservatory.

In 2007, she participated in Talent Suomi ("Talent Finland"), finishing in the top three.

In addition to her singing career, Aalto is also an actress, having starred as Dorothy and Pfannee in the Finnish production of the musical Wicked and as Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ Superstar.

From 2008 to 2011, she appeared in the Helsinki City Theatre musicals, first as Kelsi in High School Musical on Stage! and its second installment, and then in Wicked.

Aalto took part on two separate occasions in the selection process in a bid to represent Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest.

She participated in the qualifying rounds in Finland for Eurovision 2011, placing second to Paradise Oskar who went on to represent Finland.

She received 40.7% of the public televotes, compared to 46.7% for Oskar.

Aalto's recording was released as a single by Yume Records, a self-released record label she founded together with Teemu Roivainen in 2011.

Following her performance of "Blessed with Love" for qualification in Eurovision 2011, that December she was involved in the Santa Claus Season's Greetings Song Contest, where she sang "Ai De Zhu Fu," a Chinese (Mandarin) version of her Eurovision song "Blessed with Love".

In 2012, she came second in the first season of The Voice of Finland.

In November 2012, Aalto was guest vocalist at Robert Wells's highly successful show Rhapsody in Rock at Shanghai Daning theatre.

In the blind auditions, broadcast on 6 February 2012 on the Finnish commercial television channel Nelonen, she performed "Taking Chances" from Celine Dion with all four coaches, Elastinen, Lauri Tähkä, Paula Koivuniemi and Michael Monroe turning their chairs.

She opted to be part of Team Monroe.

In the Battle Round on 17 February, she was confronted with team competitor Anna Inginmaa, both singing "True Colors".

Coach Monroe opted for Aalto to go to the next round.

In the live show on 23 March, she sang "Barracuda" and was saved by Monroe after failing to get enough votes from the public.

She followed it up with the French language "Je suis malade" from Serge Lama and was safe after the public vote.

In the semifinals with her rendition of "Over the Rainbow", she qualified for the finals held on 20 April where she sang "I'm Gonna Be Strong" from Frankie Laine and an original song titled "My Love".

She placed second to winner Mikko Sipola.

Following a successful performance in Shanghai in May 2013, opening for Spanish tenor José Carreras and singing several songs in Chinese, Aalto returned to the city to duet with tenor Han Peng at the Closing Ceremony of the Shanghai International Film Festival in June 2013, broadcast to over 800 million viewers in 10 countries.

Finding great reception from Chinese audiences, in July 2013 Aalto went on to release a full album destined for Mainland China and other Chinese markets also titled Ai De Zhu Fu.

On the album she performed nine of the album's 13 tracks in Mandarin language.

Aalto participated in season one of The Voice of Finland.

In 2016, Aalto finished as the runner-up in the thirteenth series of The X Factor UK, which gained her international recognition.

Her second bid to represent Finland was for Eurovision Song Contest 2016 through the competition Uuden Musiikin Kilpailu, again placing second.

Although winning the public vote, she was disadvantaged with the judging vote going to the eventual winner Sandhja who went on to represent Finland with the song "Sing It Away".

Aalto auditioned for the thirteenth UK series of The X Factor in 2016 in front of attending judges Simon Cowell, Louis Walsh and Nicole Scherzinger, singing a cover of Sia's "Chandelier", which earned her three yeses from the judges.

At Bootcamp, she performed "On the Radio" by Donna Summer and was sent through as part of the over-25s category, mentored by Sharon Osbourne, who was not present at her audition.

At the six-chair challenge, she performed "I See Fire" by Ed Sheeran and was sent home by Osbourne who stated a lack of connection.

In 2018, she represented Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018, in which she qualified for the grand final and finished in 25th place.

Aalto became a judge on X Factor Suomi during the same year.

In 2019, she participated on Dancing on Ice and finished in third place.

Born in Oulunsalo, Finland, Aalto grew up in a musical family and received piano lessons from pianist and pedagogue Olga Maslak, born in Odessa, Soviet Union.

Aalto wrote her first song at the age of five.

Her grandfather is painter and documentary director Eeli Aalto and magician Simo Aalto is her uncle.