Bands
Here are the primary bands Kiureli is working with at the moment
In 2004, a bunch of Finns form a bhangra band and call it Shava. Being all whiter than sour cream in a snow storm, they don’t think they have any real credibility to get on the international Bhangra scene, and start off with the assumption of playing mostly to their local Helsinki audiences. They’re initially very surprised to be invited for a big Bhangra festival in Vancouver. ”The Indian audiences at the festival were screaming with excitement seeing Europeans perform their music”, the lead singer and songwriter Kiureli Sammallahti recalls their first shows at the City Of Bhangra festival in 2009. Now, the band has 2 albums to its name and has toured the world from Iceland to Azerbaijan and for India to the US, and has gained international media exposure for its unlikely but explosive combination of Finnish lyrics and Punjabi beats. Some highlights include appearing on the BBC World News TV and competing on Finland's Eurovision try-outs in 2015.
Hilja Grönfors Trio
Hilja Grönfors & Latso Džinta
Traditional Roma way of life is more than familiar for Honorary Doctor and Academic Hilja Grönfors. In the 1950′ she lived the Roma life travelling all over Finland with her family. Hilja loved to sing already when she was only a child. Her great interest in the Roma culture and especially music forced Hilja to become a collector – she has spent thousands of kilometers on the road and by now she has a collection of more than 100 Finnish Roma songs.
Grönfors tours both with her band Latso Džinta as well as the smaller Trio with Kiureli and Valtteri Bruun.
Balladeja ja hävyttömyyksiä
Balladeja ja hävyttömyyksiä - "Ballads And Bad Manners" is a fresh group started in 2024. The band performs beloved songs from the repertoire of Cornelis Vreeswijk, a true people's hero and troubadour in Sweden. He was never that well known in Finland - Balladeja ja hävyttömyyksiä is planning to change that! The group has translated many of the songs into Finnish and performs bilingually. In addition to Kiureli, core members of the band include Karri "Paleface" Miettinen, Daniela Fogelholm and Roope Aarnio.
Totuus ja valhe
Vladimir Vysotsky was a beloved and revered artist in his home country, the Soviet Union. As an artist, he was a true bohemian—and as a singer, his raspy voice carried on the tradition of street and prison songs known as "blatnoi" music. The band Totuus ja valhe (Truth and Lie) was founded in Helsinki in 2006. The band's members were drawn to Vysotsky’s humane, sometimes macabre narrative voice and his way of examining the surrounding society. The band's concert repertoire includes songs translated into Finnish by notable figures such as Turkka Mali, Pirkko Saisio, and Kaj Chydenius, with the latest translations by Kiureli. The band released a full-length album in the spring of 2023 and its members are Kiureli, Valtteri Bruun, Jarkko Lahti, Nora Raikamo and Martti Suosalo.