Sonja Bishop

Big Dreams! Big dreams spur Sonja Biskop on in her music career. Performing for fifteen years in venues all over northern Europe.

The dream began when Sonja Lindh was three years old and living with her parents and three brothers on a dairy farm that has been in the family since 1752. It is located near the small town of Kronoby, Finland (about 500 kilometers or 310 miles north of Helsinki near the west coast). One of Sonja's earliest memories is pretending the back porch was her big stage and the porch light her spotlight.

Sonja's career began early. At age 10 she was performing gospel and other music for church and school. She grew to love country music, initially, by listening over and over to a Jim Reeves tape that her parents had.

At the age of 15 Sonja was discovered when a neighbour told the leader of a local country band that Sonja could really sing. Borje Nylund was so impressed with her ability that he invited her to join his Country Life Band. Sonja smiles when she remembers how nervous she was for her very first performance with them at a community festival, but the moment she stepped on the stage the fear disappeared in her joy of singing. The audience was amazed at such a young woman's voice and skill, and proud to have a professional vocalist in their small community. Sonja sang with Country Life for five years, mostly performing songs written by Dolly Parton, Hank Williams, and Borje Nylund. Her fine mezzo soprano voice allows her to sing a broad range of hits. Sonja's parents have continually been a source of support, even allowing her to go on tour with the all male band to Sweden when she was only 15. They later performed for dances and concerts throughout Scandinavia. In 1990 Sonja recorded her first album, "My Best Friends", at The Barn, Country Life's own studio.

While singing with Country Life, Sonja met another vocalist, Helene Nylund, with whom she formed a vocal duet. They travelled and performed extensively in Finland and Sweden for ten years. They recorded two albums together. Their first joint album was "Straight from Our Hearts" in 1992. Their second album was a collection of Swedish Christmas songs.

Wanting to try different styles of music like jazz and pop, Sonja contacted the director of the Kokkola Estraadi School of Art. The first time she sang for Alf Myllari he said that she is a real "Swing girl", meaning that swing and jazz suit her. Sonja took jazz lessons from him for about a year and a half. She also performed Swedish dance music in 1988 with a group called Husbandeth. Although it was fun for the brief time she performed with them, she discovered that her heart was more in pop, country and jazz music.

In 1989 Sonja decided to participate in the Finnish Country Music Contest. To her delight she won first place! This honor entitled her to represent Finland in the European Country Music Contest in Krezlingen, Switzerland. Sonja finished an impressive seventh in Europe at age 18. She remembers the impressive stage and huge audience, but she was not nervous. Singing is as natural as breathing for her. She only needs an audience.

2002 proved to be another step in Sonja's career thanks to her cousin, Thelma Mosebar, of Olympia, Washington, who happened to hear about the Colgate Country Showdown on a local radio station, KGY. Thelma immediately emailed Sonja the web address for this national contest with a brief note to consider the opportunity. Sonja's dad, upon hearing about the contest, was again behind her. "You aren't getting any younger!" he said. The decision was made to fly to the US at least twice to perform.

In the year 2004 Sonja participated at the finnish selection for the Eurovision song contest. Sonja came 7:th with the song "Should I run, Should I hide" written by Peter Svanström and Tage Borgmästars.

During this year, Sonja has been working on songs Composer by the legendary Latvian composer, Raimonds Pauls. The idéa with this project is to get Raimonds Pauls´songs international.

Sonja recorded an English version of his most popular songs “Million Roses” (Davaja Marina). The new English name of the song is “Do you know”. She got the honor to performe the song at the Gada Balva music awards in Riga, Latvia 2005.

On 22 august 2005, Sonja released a new radio single in Latvia, “Y’love who Y’love” music by Raimonds Pauls, and lyrics by Guntars Racs and Molly-Ann Leikin. The song is Published by MicRec Publishing/Red Amaryllis.