Ann-Mari Andersen is born and raised in Kautokeino, Norway. Her biggest passion in life is music of all kinds. She started to play the guitar at the age of 9, and later on she also learned to play the piano. Still, the guitar remained to be her main instrument. Now she performs alone with her guitar as well as with a complete band.

Ann-Mari Andersen has been through a number of music styles and genres during her career so far. In her teens she participated in all kinds of musical groups, from children’s choirs and youth choirs through gospel choirs to rock bands, but for the past years, Ann-Mari Andersen has become one of the most successful Sami artists we have. Today, Ann-Mari Andersen plays modern pop combined with ethno and world music, and she sings both in Sami and English. A unique combination, as many people would say.

In 1993 Ann-Mari Andersen won the biggest Sami singing contest, The Sami Grand Prix, and made a kick start with her musical career. In 2000, she was one of the lead singers in a big musical show initiated by the Sami National Theatre (Beaivváš) and directed by the world famous film director Nils Gaup, and the show toured for weeks both in Norway and Finland.

Ann-Mari Andersen reached national fame in 2008, when she participated in the Norwegian finale for Eurovision Song Contest with the song Ándagassii (Forgiveness). Unfortunally it did not win even though it was one of the favorites, but the song has got a lot of attention all over Europe. Some medias have even compared Ann-Mari and Ándagassii to Peter Gabriel! 

Ann-Mari Andersen is now releasing her second album, which also is titled Ándagassii. The album is produced by Stein Austrud, who is one of Norways most well known producers, and contains both the song Ándagassii, and Du lahka (Close to you), which hit second place on a national chart in Norway, Norsktoppen, in 2007. The release date is September 7^th 2009. 

Ann-Mari Andersen’s debut CD Ija hearva was released in 2003 and received great reviews by music journalists all over the country.