New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ Jennifer Conrad PR) Already a major star in her native Finland, pop star
Saara Aalto today releases Ai De Zhu Fu (Blessed with Love) in Mainland China through Finland's Yume Records. With nine of the album's 13 tracks performed in Mandarin, this release - which will be accompanied by a major push on Chinese social media - reveals a European artist devoted to developing her fan base in Asia.
Saara Aalto is available for phone or email interviews from her native Helsinki.
Aalto culled the songs for the album from her two English-language releases, Blessed with Love and You Had My Heart. "I'm excited to see if Chinese people like my own songs translated into Chinese," says Aalto, who has been studying the language and worked with a tutor on the pronunciation. "The language is very beautiful, especially in songs."
The album marks Aalto's latest effort to reach Chinese-speaking audiences. She has performed in Shanghai three times, most recently at this year's closing gala for the Shanghai International Film Festival. To build excitement for the album in the days leading to the release,
Aalto made one song a day available to her followers on Weibo.
Watch Aalto's video for her single "Shou Shang De Xin" ("You Had My Heart") on Youku: https://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XNTcwNjU0NjI0.html
Fittingly, the album bridges Asian and Western pop traditions. "In some songs we left the production as it was in the original version, but in others we changed the production to sound more like Chinese pop, so we added some keyboards, drums, and other sounds here and there," says Aalto. "The CD is produced and recorded in Finland, so of course it still has the European sound in it, but I think it's really interesting to see how Nordic and Chinese sounds come together. It can be something really new and fresh!"
A multilingual singer-songwriter from Helsinki,
September 7, 2013; Beijing, China
Saara Aalto composed her first songs at the age of five and began playing piano by seven. In 2007, she placed second on Finland's Got Talent, and she followed that up with second-place finishes at Finland's Eurovision Song Contest finals in 2011 and on The Voice of Finland in 2012. Also in 2012,
Aalto recorded the Finnish versions of two songs for Disney/Pixar's Brave. She's is an accomplished actress, having starred as
Dorothy and Phannee in the Finnish production of Wicked - The Musical and as Mary Magdalene in Jesus Christ Superstar.
Ai De Zhu Fu is available through iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/ai-de-zhu-fu/id699454507?ign-mpt=uo%3D4
