Jenni Vartiainen

Jenni Mari Vartiainen is a Finnish pop singer. Before her professional musical endeavours, she was a figure skater in her teenage years and attended the Kuopio Senior High of Music and Dance. Vartiainen rose to publicity by winning the Finnish talent show Popstars in October 2002 with Susanna Korvala, Ushma Karnani and Jonna Pirinen. The four formed the band Gimmel that released three studio albums, sold over 160,000160records and received three Emma Awards, accolades for outstanding achievements in music, awarded by the Finnish music industry federation, Musiikkituottajat. The band broke up in October1602004.

Jenni Mari Vartiainen was born on March16020,1601983, in Kuopio. She started to play classical piano at the age of six and she played it until she was 16, building her musical skills later on by attending Kuopio Senior High of Music and Dance. In her teenage years, Vartiainen was also a figure skater, competing ultimately at Finlands senior level alongside future top Finnish skaters such as Susanna Pyki. In the summer of 1999, when she was 16, she was injured during a skating lesson and she developed a spinal disc herniation due to which she had to quit skating. In the spring of 2002, Vartiainen completed her matriculation examination at the Senior High and moved to Helsinki. She was about to travel abroad, but her plans changed as she saw an advertisement of Popstars, the first Finnish season of the New Zealandbased casting show format.

Source: Wikipedia