Seminaarinmäen mieslaulajat aka Semmarit is a male choir from Jyväskylä

Jyväskylä

Jyväskylä is the capital of Central Finland and the largest city on the Finnish Lakeland, north-east of Tampere and north of Helsinki, on northern coast of lake Päijänne. The city has been continuously one of the most rapidly growing cities in Finland since World War II. The city is surrounded...

, Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

 formed in 1989. The group extremely seldom performs traditional male choir music. They deliberately break the boundaries of choral music, and it is difficult to place their music in a specific genre

Genre

Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...

. It is however strongly influenced by rock and roll

Rock and roll

Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...

 and pop music

Pop music

Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...

. All songs are composed and regularly polled

Opinion poll

An opinion poll, sometimes simply referred to as a poll is a survey of public opinion from a particular sample. Opinion polls are usually designed to represent the opinions of a population by conducting a series of questions and then extrapolating generalities in ratio or within confidence...

 amongst the group members. The songs rarely have instrumental accompaniment; however, in some songs instruments are used for special effects. The instruments they have used included the djembe

Djembe

A djembe also known as jembe, jenbe, djbobimbe, jymbe, yembe, or jimbay, or sanbanyi in Susu; is a skin-covered drum meant played with bare hands....

, the didgeridoo

Didgeridoo

The didgeridoo is a wind instrument developed by Indigenous Australians of northern Australia around 1,500 years ago and still in widespread usage today both in Australia and around the world. It is sometimes described as a natural wooden trumpet or "drone pipe"...

, the kazoo

Kazoo

The kazoo is a wind instrument which adds a "buzzing" timbral quality to a player's voice when the player vocalizes into it. The kazoo is a type of mirliton, which is a membranophone, a device which modifies the sound of a person's voice by way of a vibrating membrane."Kazoo" was the name given by...

, the bagpipes

Bagpipes

Bagpipes are a class of musical instrument, aerophones, using enclosed reeds fed from a constant reservoir of air in the form of a bag. Though the Scottish Great Highland Bagpipe and Irish uilleann pipes have the greatest international visibility, bagpipes of many different types come from...

, a toilet

Toilet

A toilet is a sanitation fixture used primarily for the disposal of human excrement, often found in a small room referred to as a toilet/bathroom/lavatory...

 door

Door

A door is a movable structure used to open and close off an entrance, typically consisting of a panel that swings on hinges or that slides or rotates inside of a space....

, a zipper

Zipper

A zipper is a commonly used device for temporarily joining two edges of fabric...

 in the fly

Fly

True flies are insects of the order Diptera . They possess a pair of wings on the mesothorax and a pair of halteres, derived from the hind wings, on the metathorax...

 of their trousers and water-filled beer

Beer

Beer is the world's most widely consumed andprobably oldest alcoholic beverage; it is the third most popular drink overall, after water and tea. It is produced by the brewing and fermentation of sugars, mainly derived from malted cereal grains, most commonly malted barley and malted wheat...

 bottle

Bottle

A bottle is a rigid container with a neck that is narrower than the body and a "mouth". By contrast, a jar has a relatively large mouth or opening. Bottles are often made of glass, clay, plastic, aluminum or other impervious materials, and typically used to store liquids such as water, milk, soft...

s to imitate a pan flute

Pan flute

The pan flute or pan pipe is an ancient musical instrument based on the principle of the closed tube, consisting usually of five or more pipes of gradually increasing length...

. Some group members also physically use their colleagues as air guitar

Air guitar

Playing air guitar is a form of dance and movement in which the performer pretends to play rock or heavy metal-style electric guitar, including riffs, solos, etc. Playing an air guitar usually consists of exaggerated strumming and picking motions and is often coupled with loud singing or lip-synching...

s for playing "instrumental" solos. Imaginative props

Theatrical property

A theatrical property, commonly referred to as a prop, is an object used on stage by actors to further the plot or story line of a theatrical production. Smaller props are referred to as "hand props". Larger props may also be set decoration, such as a chair or table. The difference between a set...

 and choreography

Choreography

Choreography is the art of designing sequences of movements in which motion, form, or both are specified. Choreography may also refer to the design itself, which is sometimes expressed by means of dance notation. The word choreography literally means "dance-writing" from the Greek words "χορεία" ...

 are an integral part of the show.

Most of the singers are academically trained, singing non-professionally. The group doesn't perform very often, and most of the concerts take place on an annual tour. Seminaarinmäen mieslaulajat has toured in Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

, Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and China

China

Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...

. In 1996-7 they embarked on a sold-out tour in Finland with a symphony orchestra conducted by Atso Almila

Atso Almila

Atso Almila is a Finnish orchestral conductor, musical director, composer, trombonist and teacher.He has worked with most Finnish orchestras as a guest conductor or otherwise. Though he primarily operates in Finland he also works heavily in Sweden and Estonia...

. The group consists of 21 singers and conductor Reima Viitala. Their lighting

Lighting

Lighting or illumination is the deliberate application of light to achieve some practical or aesthetic effect. Lighting includes the use of both artificial light sources such as lamps and light fixtures, as well as natural illumination by capturing daylight...

 and sound technicians are so essential to the shows that they are considered to be members of the group. Recent recordings include a DVD Filminauhaa (2005) which promptly rose to no.2 on the Finnish charts. The superb sound on the DVD is the handiwork of a long time choir member Janne Kettunen, a producer and brass

Brass

Brass is an alloy of copper and zinc; the proportions of zinc and copper can be varied to create a range of brasses with varying properties.In comparison, bronze is principally an alloy of copper and tin...

player extraordinaire.

Discography

• Kuka on tuo mies (Who Is That Man) (1993)
• Ruohonjuuritasolla (Down-to-Earth) (1995)
• Sampo Texas (Sampo Texas) (1996)
• Ukkokiekuu (Mancrow) (1998)
• Hakkaan sun ovee (Beating Your Door) (2001)
• Wunderbaum (Wunderbaum) (2004)
• Laulut ja Tarinat (Songs and Stories) (2007)
• Filminauhaa (Filmreel) (DVD, 2005)
• 20 - Kokoelma (2009)
• Suuntaamme Avaruuteen Live (Heading Into Space Live) (2009)