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T-Rroma is a band that formed out of the 2001 World Music Festival in Chicago. There were a few of us that wanted to perform some gypsy music, so we assembled some people that enjoyed playing that type of music. Our first appearance was at the Hot House, an international venue in Chicago. We enjoyed a nice reception from our audience and were asked to perform there again.
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T-Rroma is made up of second and third generation Croatian-Americans who are helping to maintain the tamburitza tradition in this country.
Tamburitza music is based on a family of plucked, stringed instruments: prim, the smallest of the family; brac, the alto "viola" voice, often carrying the melody line; cello; berde, a fretted bass; and bugarija, a guitar-sized chord rhythm instrument. In South Central Europe, where tamburitza originated, ensembles play indigenous folk music of the eastern region of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire, especially in the Pannonian Plain, the buffer zone that separated Europe from the Ottoman Empire.
In the U.S., the tamburitza repertoire has been influenced by Greek, Armenian, and even Mexican melodies, with occasional excursions into country-western and contemporary pop; the core, however is still traditional.
T-Rroma's music is based on the tradition of the "Gypsy-style" playing from around the multi-ethnic city of Novi Sad, the cultural capital of the Vojvodina, an autonomous region of Serbia populated by Slovaks, Hungarians, Ruthenians, and Roma (Gypsies), as well as Serbs and Croats.
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Although Tamburitza Rroma (T-Rroma) is based in Chicago, its musical roots and its fan base spread far beyond that city's boundaries. Its repertoire, which includes original as well as folk and modern compositions, is as rich and diverse as the culture of the Gypsy (or the preferred "Rom"), from which it takes its name.
At every performance, T-Rroma takes its audience on a compelling worldwide journey that stretches from the Balkans to South America, punctuated from start to finish by everything from hushed and haunting ballads to powerful, pulsating Latin rhythms. 
T-Rroma's members all are seasoned performers who have been honing their musical skills since childhood. Each has performed with first-class musicians and singers in America, Canada and the former Yugoslavia.
Several years ago they came together to form T-Rroma, and since then, the ensemble has built a large and loyal fan base in its home city and throughout the U.S. It is T-Rroma's ability to blend soulful passion with technical expertise its knack for delivering complex instrumental pieces and vocal arrangements with what appears to be effortless precision that has made the band one of the most sought after Rom orchestras in the country.
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