SaMa Duo
Sara Pajunen (hardanger d’amore/voice) & Maja Radovanlija (guitar)
In SaMa Duo, melodies and musical gestures inherited from various traditions and cultural geographies weave together through hardanger d’amore, classical guitar, and voice. With shared foundations in Western classical, folk, and experimental improvised music, Sara Pajunen and Maja Radovanlija approach both oral traditions and composed music not as something fixed in the past, but as living material carried across generations and borders. Drawing specifically on the sounds of Northern Europe and the Balkans, their performances move fluidly between inherited and newly created material, opening the forms to improvisation and transformation.
Pajunen and Radovanlija have been performing together for the past two years, developing a distinctive musical voice that brings the distinctive sounds, rhythms, and melodies of their respective musical and cultural roots into dialogue. Radovanlija, born in Belgrade, grew up immersed in the musical world of Serbia and the wider Balkans before continuing her musical life in Central Europe and the United States. Born into the immigrant culture of Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range, Pajunen’s work is rooted in her Finnish and Slovenian ancestry and an ongoing exploration of sound, landscape, and cultural memory.
SaMa Duo is rooted in the meeting of musical lineages shaped by different histories, migrations, and landscapes. What emerges is music suspended between memory and invention—reshaped through listening, and transformed through encounter.