Arja Koriseva

Arja Koriseva (born 21 April 1965) is a Finnish singer. She first came to fame as a tango singer; her repertoire now includes evergreen, pop, musical theatre, and sacred music.

Koriseva has sold over 330,000 certified records, making her the seventh best-selling female soloist in Finland.

Koriseva said of the village school she attended:

“The school was very small and homey; my class had just three pupils. We were good in different subjects and learned a lot from each other. Because we were so few, the classes were joined so that the first and second were together, the third and fourth similarly, and so on. During the breaks we went swimming; on Shrove Tuesday we tobogganed. The cook baked pulla buns and brought them to us with juice as a snack. In fine weather, we had lessons outside and when it was raining, we did sums in class. Once a storm blew down a birch tree in the school yard, we made firewood from it and carried them inside.” (Nyman, p. 51)

Koriseva grew up in a family inclined towards music: her parents were both active in their church choir, and Koriseva's maternal uncle, Erkki Friman, is a harmonikka player (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).

Koriseva and her sister/fellow singer, Eija (b. 31 October 1963), sang with the Peräkylä Boys band in youth hostels, holiday camps, restaurants and various other places in central Finland from 1978. When the Peräkylä Boys broke up to continue their studies, the Koriseva sisters created a new band, Kastanja (“Chestnut”).

Note that Koriseva's sister, Eija, is not the same Eija Koriseva, who is a mathematics professor at the University of Helsinki.

In 1983, Koriseva was admitted to the Central Finland Conservatory to study music.