Samane Paya

Iranian composer, vocalist, and narrative artist Samane Paya creates music that weaves together Iranian folk memory, vocal expression, and contemporary sound worlds. Her work explores themes of displacement, resistance, and identity through a palette ranging from delicate chamber textures to electrifying operatic and electronic landscapes. She often sings in her own pieces. One of them, Whisper in Wind, a work about resistance and women’s freedom, was premiered by Coy Mistress Quartet with Paya as one of its two singers. The piece received an Honorable Mention for the Israel Pellman Prize and later became the basis of her paper “Whisper in Resistance,” which she presented at the Sounding Iran Conference at UC Irvine in 2026.

At UC Davis she is pursuing a Ph.D. in composition. Her research interests include Persian literary tradition, the history of Iranian vocal music, and their meeting point with Western compositional practice. Supported by a 2026 Daryabari Summer Grant, she is currently researching how Persian poetry has been transformed in Iranian vocal music.

Hub New Music recently commissioned her new work Between Truth and recorded it in New York for an upcoming album. In 2026, Seraph Brass premiered her brass quintet Unheard, and Stick & Bow performed her piece for cello and marimba. Her earlier works have been played by Momenta Quartet and ModernMedieval Voices, and her chamber opera Into Night was premiered by Tri-Cities Opera with WSKG Public Television.

Before coming to the United States, she sang soprano with Tonal Choir in Tehran, winning medals with the choir at the Seghizzi International Choral Competition in Italy, and performed in some sixty shows of Les Misérables at Espinas Palace. She studied composition with Mohammad Reza Tafazoli, Rebeka Ashoughian, and Arman Norouzi in Tehran, and with Daniel Thomas Davis at Binghamton University, where she also studied voice with Brenda Iglesias.

Areas of interest: Composition, Vocal music and performance, Persian poetry and music, Iranian music history, Electroacoustic music