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Zoran Majstorovic
Jazz&World music - arranging, producing, composing, playing
About Me
Jazz musician, guitarist, multiinstrumentalist, 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 Rijeka area during
1960’s and 1970’s. Later on he studied with the most prominent guitar players in
Croatia and studied with and/or attended workshops of many world famous guitar
players like Scott Henderson, Robben Ford, Marc Ribot, Sid Jacobs, Kurt Rosenwinkel…
After playing shortly in some demo-bands he joins, at the age of 14, a pop-rock group
called “Teens” and stays with that band for 7 years.During those years the band played
hundreds of concerts in Croatia and abroad, winning many awards in Croatia and
internationally (most notable Porin 2000.g.), releasing 3 cd’s, gaining high popularity
and appearing on numerous music festivals in many different countries.
In the years that followed he collaborates with many famous singers, mostly in Croatia,
takes part in different projects, recordings and orchestras in Croatia and internationally.
He also obtained a master degree with maximum votes in jazz performance at the jazz
department of “Conservatorio G. Tartini” in Trieste, Italy.
Beside playing with many jazz&etno musicians from Croatia and his region, he played
and can be heard on records with many instrumentalists from different countries like
Joe Locke, Bruce Ditmas, Reginald Veal, Corey Christiansen, Pat O'Leary, John Stowell,
Russ Spiegel, Jimmy Weinstein, James Thompson, Kenn Bailey, Phil Keaggy, Asaf Sirkis,
Yaron Stavi, Oleg Kireyev, Carlos Werneck, Takatsuna Mukai, Yoshio Machida, U.T.Gandhi,
Francesco Bearzatti, Danilo Gallo, David Boato, Giorgio Pacorig, Tommasso Cappellato,
Dario Carnovale, Alfonso Deidda, Alessio Menconi, Riccardo Chiarion, Andre Araujo,
Wilmer Sifontes, Alvise Seggi, Luca Colussi, Simone Serafini, Jacob Melchior, Joe
Kaplowitz, Rosa Brunello, Eldar Saparayev, Marcello Benetti, Alessandro Turchet, Flavio
Davanzo, Michele Bonivento, Vlatko Stefanovski, Vasil Hadzimanov, Aleksandar Ipavec,
Naat Veliov, Vasko Atanasovski, Stefano Di Grigoli, Mirko Cisilino, Igor Checchini,
Moulaye Niang, Bodhisattwa Ghosh, Biji Bhattacharya, Premjit Dutta, Thomas Bauser,
Daniel Schay, Martin Moro…and many international vocalists like Saba Anglana,
Gabrielle Stravelli, Nancy Vieira, Tamara Obrovac, Milk and Coffee, Gino Santercole,
Byron Motley, Lino Rocha, Ty Le Blanc, Pastora Soler, David Elliot, Marcina Arnold, Simon
Marlow, Teti Cortese, Heloisa Lourenco, Francesca Viaro, Arsen Dedic Rade Serbedzija,
Gabi Novak, Tereza Kesovija, Tinkara Kovac, Aleksandra Kovac, Nika Solce, Lela
Kaplowitz…
In various line-ups he played in jazz clubs and festivals in Croatia, Slovenia, Serbia, Italy,
Austria, Bosnia&Herzegovina, Macedonia, Hungary, Netherlands, Montenegro, Germany,
Finland, Estonia, Romania, Switzerland...
Beside leading his own “Loose trio” and his world music group “Atma Mundi Ensemble”
he as an active member of the following groups & projects: “Voices Of Nature”, “Art
Pollution Trio”, “Galere di Fiandra e di Siria”, “Gabrielle Stravelli 4tet”, “Arakne group”,
“Max Trabucco 4tet” and he sometimes collaborates and plays with ”Jazz Orchestra HRT
Zagreb”, ”JazzIstra Orchestra”, ”Zoran Majstorović-Matija Dedić duo”, ”Chui”, ”B.Šercar's
Jazziana Croatica”, Acoustic Songs of Faith”, ”LeKap quartett”...
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.
Also published a book of transcriptions called “Abazar” featuring the music from the
international world music group “Voices of Nature” album of the same name.
Beside playing the guitar he is an acknowledged multiinstrumentalist playing and
performing on various string instruments such as the oud, saz, pipa, charango, cindra,
mandolin, sitar, tamburitza...
He is also a seasoned arranger in the jazz domain writing arrangements for many
renowned groups and orchestras such as “Jazz orchestra HRT Zagreb”, “Big T Band”
(direction by Klaus Gesing), “HGM jazz orchestra Zagreb” (direction by Sigi Feigl),
“Orchestra Laboratorio” (direction by Giovanni Maier), “JazzIstra orchestra”, Tamara
Obrovac Transhistria Ensemble, Chui, Kristian Terzić band, Jan Pele Dalmotion
project, Gradska glazba Samobor, “The Wildflowers”, “Borna Sercar’s Jazziana
Croatica”…and of course writing for his own groups and the groups he takes part in as
an instrumentalist.
His artistic interest is confined not only to jazz and etno 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.Through sound art and site-specific concerts and performances
Zoran tries to ensure that he is thought of not only as an multiinstrumentalist, arranger
and composer but also as an conceptual artist that has different ways of expressing his
artistic individuality.Projects and collaborations in the field of sound art and site-specific
concerts and performances are performances at the MMSU Rijeka(Museum for Modern
and Contemporary Art, Rijeka, Croatia), Spanish artist Laura Lanelli’s project
“Dispersion”, participation in the project “Corners” by Croatian artist Davor Sanvincenti,
“Štikla” series of concerts dealing with sound art and improvised music, concerts in
different venues with his improvised music collective “Art Pollution”…
Beside being active in everything mentioned, Zoran is also teaching music, giving
workshops and seminars(annual workshop during the International guitar festival in
Kastav,Croatia), part-time organizing and promoting different cultural activities, mainly
dealing with improvised music, etno and jazz music, sound art…Zoran’s music and
playing can be heard on different projects published by many record companies such as
Croatia Records, IDM Music, Dallas records, Aquarius records, Orfej, Abeat, LAD records,
HIT, Birdland sound, Musica Jazz, Numar Un, Bono Records, Maraton…
More info here:
http://www.zoranmajstorovic.com