Tamara Obrovac

Tamara Obrovac was born in 1962 in Pula, where she graduated from high school of music playing the flute. A singer, flautist, composer and lyricist, she started playing jazz music in the early eighties in Zagreb, performing in clubs across Croatia and Slovenia. Soon, she created her own signature compositions, connecting the musical and dialectal traditions of her native Istria with jazz music, which also brings her international recognition. She writes lyrics in her own dialect, and also sings in several endangered Istrian dialects of Slavic and Romance origin, setting the verses of Istrian poets to music. She heads several musical bands, and in addition to her international concert activity, she composes music for theatre and cinema. She worked in most national and city theatres in Croatia and the region, collaborating with many renowned film and theatre directors. She has released 13 original CDs and composed around two hundred of her own compositions, music for over 40 theatre and ballet performances and 10 films. She has given more than 500 international concerts at many significant European and world festivals and stages, and has received multiple awards for her work. She is the winner of 12 stage music awards, including the Golden Arena for music for the film What is a Man Without a Moustache, 12 national music Porin awards and two nominations for the BBC Radio3 World Music Award.