| Saara Sofia Aalto (born 2 May 1987) is a Finnish singer, songwriter, and voice actress. She came second in the first season of The Voice of Finland in 2012. Aalto competed in the Finnish national selection to represent Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest two times, first in 2011 with "Blessed with Love" and then in 2016 with "No Fear", both times placing second. On 7 November 2017, it was announced that she had been internally selected by broadcaster Yle to represent Finland in the Eurovision Song Contest 2018 in Lisbon. The Finnish public chose the song "Monsters". She qualified for the grand final and finished in 25th place.
She has taken part in musicals on stage and has done a great number of dubbings for feature films and foreign television series. Saara Aalto is the voice of Princess Anna in the Finnish version of Disney's animated movie Frozen. She has dueted with Adam Lambert, and had concerts together with Andrea Bocelli, José Carreras and pianist Robert Wells. She has released 5 albums on her own record label Yume Records.In 2016, Aalto came runner-up in the thirteenth series of The X Factor UK, which gained her international recognition. Every fourth Finn watched The X Factor final. Aalto was the most-Googled person in Finland in 2016. Tabloid newspaper Iltalehti readers voted Saara Aalto as Finnish person of the year 2016. Following the show, she was signed to both Sony Music UK and Finland. In June 2017, Aalto announced via social media that she will be a judge on season two of X Factor Suomi. Four months later, Aalto announced she had left Sony Music for Warner Music Group, citing that her previous deal did not feel like the "right team". |
