Saaramaija Żórawski is a musician and music pedagogue whose practice combines composition, performance, and participatory arts in healthcare and community contexts. She has worked extensively in hospitals, nursing homes, and with a community choir, creating inclusive musical spaces that support emotional expression, well-being, and social connection.
She works with her self-developed method Ääneen Laulettu ("Sung Out Loud"), which brings together music-making, creative writing, and collaborative artistic processes.
While her work engages with themes of well-being and mental health, it is not music therapy, but an artist- and musician-led practice centered on shared, collective creative processes and artistic exploration.
In a recent project at Helsinki University Hospital's Cancer Center, Saaramaija facilitated the Ääneen Laulettu method with young adults recovering from cancer treatments. Through music-making, writing, and shared creative processes, participants explored their lived experiences, reduced feelings of isolation, and created meaning during a vulnerable transition in their lives — while feeling seen and heard in a holistic and embodied way.
The project contributes to the development of a transferable, music-based workshop model for hospital environments and supports the integration of arts-based approaches into healthcare. Saaramaija's Artis-led work highlights the potential of music to promote well-being, support mental health, and foster community in clinical, care, and community settings.
Background / Previous work
Saaramaija Żórawski is a composer, songwriter, and performer with an international artistic practice spanning recorded music, live performance, and commissioned work. She has released multiple albums and worked across genres, with her music featured in collaborative projects, interdisciplinary performances, and documentary film contexts.
Alongside her work as a recording artist, she has developed site-specific and participatory works in institutional and public settings, including hospitals and care environments. These projects extend her artistic practice into new contexts while remaining grounded in composition, listening, and collective music-making.
Artist Statement
My artistic practice is grounded in music as a shared, relational act. I work as a composer, songwriter, and performer, exploring how sound, voice, and language can create spaces of connection, attentiveness, and presence. Rather than approaching music as a fixed product, I am interested in music as a process — something that unfolds between people, bodies, and environments.
Much of my work is rooted in listening: listening to lived experiences, to spaces, and to what emerges when people create together. I often combine songwriting, improvisation, and text-based practices, allowing personal narratives and subtle emotional states to shape the musical material. These processes result in works that move between composed songs, collective pieces, and site-responsive performances.
In recent years, my practice has expanded into institutional and care contexts, such as hospitals and residential settings. Entering these spaces has not shifted my work toward therapy, but rather sharpened my focus on artistic responsibility, ethics of presence, and the conditions that allow creative expression to feel safe and meaningful. I see these environments as sites where artistic work can be both rigorous and deeply human — joyful, light, and meaningful.
Across different contexts — from concert stages to healthcare settings — I am drawn to collaborative processes that value shared authorship, vulnerability, and trust. My work seeks to hold space for complexity: joy alongside grief, silence alongside sound, and individual voices within a collective whole.
