Award-winning guitarist, multi-instrumentalist, sound artist, arranger, and composer, begins to play guitar at the age of 9 and plays professionally since the age of 13. His first guitar teacher was his father, a well-known guitar player in the Rijeka area during the 1960s and 1970s. Later in his life, he obtained a master’s degree with maximum votes in jazz performance at the jazz department of “Conservatorio G. Tartini” in Trieste, Italy.
Besides playing the guitar he is an acknowledged multi-instrumentalist playing and performing on various string instruments such as the oud, saz, pipa, charango, cindra, kora, mandolin, sitar, tamburitza, rubab, bouzouki, cigar box guitar, ukulele…He is also a seasoned arranger in the jazz/world music domain writing arrangements for many internationally renowned groups and orchestras. Among many awards a few stand out: multiple PORIN(Croatian GRAMMY) award winner, “DAMIR DICIC” award as the best Croatian jazz guitar player, “STATUS” award as the best Croatian ethno instrumentalist, “MIROSLAV SEDAK BENCIC” award as the best Croatian jazz composer, “APOKSIOMEN “ award for his work awarded by the Primorsko-goranska county. He is a regular member of Croatian Composers Society and a memeber of Croatian Freelance Artists Association. Beside playing with many jazz & ethno musicians from Croatia and his region, he played and can be heard in concerts or recordings with many instrumentalists from different countries from around the world. In various line-ups he played in ethno and jazz clubs and festivals in Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Italy, Austria, Bosnia&Herzegovina, Macedonia, Hungary, Netherlands, Montenegro, Germany, Finland, Estonia, Romania, Switzerland, France, Ireland…
His artistic interest is confined not only to jazz and world music but is also expanded to other means of art that go beyond music and deal with sound as a material, an integral element of everyday life. Zoran is also teaching music, giving workshops and seminars and his music and playing can be heard on different projects published by many international record companies.