About me


Roni Goren Ben Zvi, AKA Roni GBZ Jr. is a professional musician, singer, actor and performance artist from Israel. He trained from a young age at the Givatayim Municipal Conservatory in Israel and as an adult at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York – a prestigious school with such notable alumni as Danny DeVito, Jessica Chastain, Adrien Brody, Anne Hathaway, Robert Redford, Lauren Bacall and Grace Kelly, where he was taught by such notable faculty as David Dean Bottrell (Boston Legal, Mad Men, True Blood) and Jennifer Leigh Mann (House of Cards, The Disappointments Room), and where he obtained an Associate of Arts degree in Acting.

Roni has been working professionally in the industry with many prestigious artists and acts. He has performed with The Cecilia Chorus of New York in Carnegie Hall with multiple award-winning conductor Mark Shapiro and many solo performers (such as Michael St. Peter, William Guanbo Su, Renée Tatum, Amanda Lynn Bottoms) performing pieces by well-known contemporary composers such as Jorge Martin and The Brothers Balliett. Their world premiere of the piece One Hour to Madness and Joy by Jorge Martin, based on poems by the iconic poet Walt Whitman, has been broadcast on national radio in the program Pipedreams to 171 radio stations in 33 US states.

Roni has also performed in IAP's Aviv Celebration event alongside Sasson Gabai (the star of 10 Tony awards hit Broadway musical The Band's Visit), and Israeli superstars David Broza and Samir Shukri. He also played with British singer Piera Van de Wiel at a special woman's day event in the United Nation Headquarters, and a charity event for Barefoot College, organized by ImpactNYC, playing original music written for the singer by world renowned composer Steve Barakatt. He is also a part of The Zappa Choir, led by jazz pianist Lee Tomboulian.

Roni has a part in the new upcoming web-series Amsterdam Avenue (currently in post-production) with well-known actors such as Catherine Curtin (Stranger Things, Orange is the New Black, Homeland), and directed by Amanda Hanna-Mcleer (Comedy Central). In Israel, Roni has worked on a lot of productions, including original hit musical The Life and Death of Liam O'Leary, and the first ever Israeli production of Stephen Sondeheim's mega Broadway hit Into the Woods.

Roni has also founded and currently leads multicultural jazz fusion group Any Gama, which in the has performed in many iconic venues in New York such as The Bitter End, The Bowery Electric, Secret Project Robot, Chelsea Music Hall and Roulette Intermedium and big festivals such as Brooklyn Wildlife Summer Festival, Artery's Home Away From Home Festival, and Bushwick Open Studios Festival. The band recorded two albums at the Flux Studios (a place frequented by singer Paul McCartney), and the Bunker Studios, and had its music reached outside of NYC to places like New Orleans, Salt Lake City, Pittsburgh and Chicago. Roni has also worked on Any Gama projects with Grammy Award winning sound engineers – Pablo Arraya (winner of 1 Grammy) and Andreas K. Meyer (winner of 14 Grammys)

Roni is an accomplished music and performance teacher, and teaches at the Real Brave Music School in Manhattan, together with well-known singer and choreographer Marina Kamen (who works with Britney Spears and Mariah Carey), and at The Connecticut School of Music in Westport, Connecticut, managed by world renowned, award-winning Taiwanese cellist and Juilliard Alum Kenneth Kuo.

Roni hopes to keep giving his part to the human culture and to American society for many more years to come.