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Portrait of Ulla PirttijärviRiddu Riđđu, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Artist profile

Ulla Pirttijärvi

Shamanism · Joik · Sámi Song

Sámi singer and joiker, born in Inari in 1971 and from the village of Angeli in northern Finland. She began in the 1980s with Angelin tytöt and went her own way after the group's first album in 1992. She sings the joik, the Sámi vocal tradition in which a person, an animal or a place is not sung about but sung: the joik is held to carry the thing itself, and with it a bond to the land and to those who came before.

ShamanismFinland
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About the artist

Ulla Pirttijärvi

She has made four solo albums, among them Áibbašeabmi in 2008. Her band Ulda was founded in 2009 and released its album in 2012, and her newest group is Áššu, whose album appeared in 2019. With her daughter Hildá Länsman she forms the duo Solju, which released its album in 2018.

She has sung on records by Frode Fjellheim, Rinneradio and Wimme Saari, and in 1987 on a cassette of Sámi-language Christmas songs with Angel-Nuorat, the group that became Angelin tytöt, and with Mari Boine. In the early 2000s she was the regional artist for Lapland. She lives with her family in Utsjoki.

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