Maria Kirizian (Maria Voutilainen), a Finnish singer now based in Los Angeles, USA, has submitted her song Little red riding hood to the Armenian broadcaster in order to participate at the country's selection for the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest. According to the Finnish broadcaster MTV3, ARMPTV have granted her a spot in the national final, thus being the first time that the Armenian selection opens its doors to a foreign artist.

Maria Kizirian was born in Finland’s Arctic region, but soon moved to the USA with her parents. Since a very early age, Maria has been involved with music. When she was 4, she learned to play the violin, and at the age of 10, she was already performing with the local symphony. Her singing career kicked off as a teenager, when she won a school singing contest, which encouraged her to follow that path.

Finnish brodcaster MTV3 reports that the Armenian jury "fell in love" with Maria's song and decided to grant her a spot in the national final, to be held on February 14th at the Opera House in Yerevan. Nonetheless, the official list of participants will be announced on February 10th. The song has already received much exposure on US radiostations in both the San Francisco Bay area and New York.

Little red riding hood "is not the story of old, there's no red cape. It is a modern story of a girl who falls for the wolf in sheep's clothing", as Maria herself describes her entry on her MySpace page. The Finnish singer feels proud about the song's making process, as it has been entirely composed by herself and her family: Maria wrote, sang, and produced the song; her daughters Cheyenne and Melody sing backing vocals, along with cousin Tim Demirjian and his daughter, Joy. The song was mixed by her husband, Paul Kirizian.

You can listen to Little red riding hood below:

Special thanks to Elena Fontaine for the submission of the information.