GenAlphaLife Artist Spotlight: The Alaskan Sunnyside Sisters
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GenAlphaLife Artist Spotlight: The Alaskan Sunnyside Sisters
Four sisters. Four instruments. A seriously old-school sound — and a very Gen Alpha way of getting people to hear it.
If your idea of Generation Alpha music starts and ends with TikTok sounds, electronic beats and whatever is trending this week, the Alaskan Sunnyside Sisters are a pretty good reason to expand the playlist.
Akulina, Salima, Cherylann and Alaniya Shamanov are four sisters originally from Alaska who have built a band around something considerably older than they are: bluegrass.
And they're not just dressing the part for social media.
Akulina leads the group on guitar and vocals, Salima plays banjo and sings, Cherylann handles upright bass, and Alaniya plays mandolin and sings harmony. Their music pulls heavily from traditional bluegrass, gospel and country, with the kind of sibling harmonies that have been part of roots music for generations.
Learn more about the Alaskan Sunnyside Sisters
They Didn't Exactly Grow Up in a Bluegrass Family
That's one of the more interesting parts of their story.
The sisters started taking classical piano lessons around age five while growing up in Alaska. Their parents aren't musicians, making the girls the first generation of musicians in their family.
During the pandemic, a trip to Florida exposed them to bluegrass, and they became hooked on it. Eventually piano gave way to guitar, banjo, mandolin and upright bass.
They initially learned a lot by ear and on their own, but this isn't some accidental garage-band situation anymore. They've studied with established players including guitarist Kenny Smith, banjo player Kristen Scott Benson, mandolin player Steve Thomas and bassist Danny Stewart Jr.
More about the sisters and their musical background
And they've progressed ridiculously quickly.
From Learning Bluegrass to the Grand Ole Opry
The sisters have already performed hundreds of shows around the country and shared stages with established bluegrass acts including Ralph Stanley II & The Clinch Mountain Boys and The Little Roy and Lizzy Show. They've also competed in youth bluegrass competitions.
Then there's a milestone that takes this well beyond “talented kids on the internet”:
They've performed at the Grand Ole Opry — twice.
The Opry now has an official artist page for the group.
See the Alaskan Sunnyside Sisters at the Grand Ole Opry
Their own current figures put their combined social audience above 350,000 followers, with more than 110 million video views across platforms.
That's an interesting collision of two completely different eras of music.
The instruments could have been played a century ago.
The mechanism carrying the performances to millions of people couldn't have existed until very recently.
Start With The Sunnyside of Bluegrass
Their debut album, The Sunnyside of Bluegrass, was released in 2025. It's a 10-song collection that includes bluegrass and country standards such as “Rocky Top,” “Blue Moon of Kentucky,” “Mule Skinner Blues” and “Will The Circle Be Unbroken.”
Listen to the Alaskan Sunnyside Sisters on Apple Music
And there's something refreshing about watching young musicians take this material seriously.
They're not treating older music like a costume or an ironic throwback. They're learning the instruments, studying the traditions and then figuring out what their version of it sounds like.
Why They're a GenAlphaLife Spotlight
That's also why they fit GenAlphaLife.
Generation Alpha doesn't have to choose between old and new. Growing up surrounded by AI, streaming, gaming and social media doesn't mean abandoning everything that came before it.
Sometimes technology does the opposite.
It lets four sisters discover music from generations before they were born, get extremely good at playing it, put a phone in front of themselves — and introduce it to another generation.
That's pretty much what keeping a tradition alive looks like.
Visit the Alaskan Sunnyside Sisters' official website
GenAlphaLife Artist Spotlight highlights young artists, creators and performers doing something genuinely worth paying attention to — not simply because they're young, but because they're good at what they do.