Arja

Arja Koriseva is a Finnish singer. She first came to fame as a tango singer; her repertoire now includes evergreen, pop, musical theatre, and sacred music. During her career, Koriseva has sold over 330, 000 certified records, which makes her the seventh-best-selling female soloist in Finland. Arja comes from a musical family: her parents were both active in the church choir, and the harmonikka player Erkki Friman is Arja’s maternal uncle (The Finnish harmonikka is not a mouth organ. It is a kind of accordion, with symmetrically arranged buttons instead of piano keys. It is not the same instrument as a bandoneon). In the spring of 1989, with the encouragement of her mother, Arja entered for the Tangomarkkinat tango singing competition. She engaged a new orchestra, Fortuna, and began to rehearse the tangos Kultaiset korvarenkaat and Vie meidät rakkauteen. These are not in fact Finnish tangos: the first is Golden Earrings, composed by Victor Young and the theme song of the film of the same name, the second is Tango d´Amour, by Leo Leandros. Since then she has recorded 15 albums (up to September 2007), and appeared in concerts and at dance halls all over Finland, as well as Canada, Australia, Switzerland, Jordan, and the UK. She has sung sacred music in church concerts, and appeared with Belgian superstar Helmut Lotti. She appears frequently on Finnish TV: she has guested on the musical game show BumtsiBum! Several times; she and Joel Hallikainen presented the musical game show Jos sais kerran in 2002-2003; and she was the heroine in the children's programme Hilarius and Loru-Liisa, with a giant mouse. She was the Finnish voice of Pocahontas in the animated film and TV series of that name. She has appeared in the soap opera Prince of Pop and in Ready Steady Cook. She has returned to the Tangomarkkinat several times as judge, and presented it in 1991, 1994, and 2004. The spectacular Eyes of an Angel concert of 1999 was broadcast on national TV. She has attempted four times to represent Finland at the Eurovision Song Contest (1991, 1992, 1993, 2004), but has never been selected.