Sara Pajunen is an artist based in Minnesota (USA), specializing in music and the sonic arts.

Her work combines folk traditions (violin/hardanger d’amore/voice), still and moving imagery, environmental recording, and ambient aesthetics. Born to the immigrant culture of Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range, landscape, history, and cultural narratives are recurrent themes in Pajunen’s artistic output.

Playing both folk and classical music since childhood, Pajunen has studied Nordic folk music extensively, and has performed music inspired by Finnish folk tradition in North America and Europe. Motivated by the interaction between a deep connection to ancestral roots and the experience of current American culture, she has released six albums using folk and traditional music as the basis for singular collaborations.

Pajunen’s interests also lie in blurring human perceptions - of music and noise, the natural and the fabricated. After studying field recording techniques, Pajunen began integrating environmental recordings into her compositional work. Umbrella project “Mine Songs: Sounding an Altered Landscape” uses locally responsive environmental recordings, image, composition and improvisation to question dominant narratives about history, power, and our relationship to the environs that surround us. Mine Songs works have been shared on the stage and in galleries, and an audio album was released in 2024.

Pajunen’s work has received funding from the Jerome Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, Kone Foundation, New Music USA, American Scandinavian Foundation, and the Arts Council of Finland. She holds classical music degrees in both the United States and Finland, and a Masters of Music in Contemporary Improvisation from New England Conservatory.

Listen to WGBH interview here.