Robert Zielinski grew up in Karragullen in the Perth hills in Western Australia. He first heard the fiddle when he was seven and recalls being transfixed by its sound. His Polish Grandfather played the violin and recognised Rob's musicality and bought him his first small violin. Robert went on to learn traditional Irish music by ear from his neighbour Eddie Lowe, and Co. Mayo fiddler Sean Doherty. Sean welcomed Robert into the Perth Irish community, and introduced him to Mick Doherty when he was twelve. Mick was a member of an iconic family of traveling fiddle players, storytellers and tinsmiths from Co. Donegal. Mick's uncle was Johnny Doherty, featured on many recordings and the RTE Documentary "The Fiddler on the Road". As a young fella, Robert would ride his bike some 40km each way to visit Mick, where he would often stay the weekend. Robert and Mick formed a great friendship that endured for 25 years. In 2012 they released Out West with the help of Kevin Bradley and The National Library of Australia. The album was made to preserve Mick's musical legacy, including rare versions of tunes within the Doherty family tradition. It has been hailed a classic and in 2019 was re-released by Cairdeas na bhFidiléirí (The Donegal Fiddlers).

At 17, Rob moved to Ireland landing in Feakle in East Clare, here he met PJ Hayes, Martin Hayes, Paddy Canny, Martin Rochford, Francie Donellan, John Naughton, Joe Bane and many others. To these East Clare musicians it was both surprising and fortuitous to have a young Australian living amongst them, welcoming him as one of their own. The rhythmic playing of PJ Hayes has stayed in his imagination ever since. It was in Feakle Robert formed a musical friendship with tin-whistle player Joe Bane. Joe made a lasting impression on him. He recalls Joe's music was like a bird, when he played, people would stop everything and just listen.

Robert spent the following 14 years living on the west coast of Ireland. He describes this time as a world of music. During which he met South Sligo fiddle master Andrew Davey, spending the following ten years learning from him. Another close friend, Galway flute player Martin O'Sullivan, influenced Roberts playing immensely during his time spent in Galway.
Robert taught for three years at the Galway School of Traditional Irish Music and in 2000 won Ireland's Michael Coleman Fiddle Player of the Year Award.

Injury in his early thirties proved too much for Robert and he reluctantly returned to Australia where he reconnected with his old mentor Mick Doherty. It was Mick who encouraged him to start playing again, helping him to play in ways that didn't harm his body. It was during this time that Robert suddenly realised the resource that Mick represented in traditional Irish music. He was able to see beyond his friendship with Mick and he set out to record and learn as much of his music as he could. Mick encouraged Robert to tackle more difficult reels, strathspeys, airs and other complex tunes off his family tradition, and share this music in performance.

In 2024 Robert released The Day Dawn, a compilation of more than 25 years of music-making with recordings from when he was 23 up to the present day. On this album are several tracks with Mick Doherty and also one very special track with Paddy Jones, the last pupil of the Sliabh Luachra fiddle master and teacher Pádraig O'Keeffe. For The Day Dawn, Robert was twice finalist at the 2024 AFMA awards.

A couple of years after Mick passed away in 2014, Robert moved to Torbay in Western Australia's remote South Coast, where he lived and worked as a violin maker and touring musician. The Torbay Inlet and surrounding country was the inspiration of Robert's new album, Kiangardarup. On this groundbreaking unique album, Robert recorded his fiddle parts outside at the Torbay inlet and surrounding Karri forests on the violin he made while living in Torbay.

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Kiangardarup is a concept album taking the listener on a journey from dawn to dusk and dusk to dawn at the Torbay Inlet in Western Australia's Great Southern region. Stevie Connor of The Sound Cafe described it as a “labour of love” taking six years to complete, and “a masterpiece that is as much a tribute to his West Australian home as it is to the enduring spirit of Irish traditional music”. For this album, Robert has just won three silver medals for outstanding achievement at the Global Music Awards, in the categories World Music, Instrumentalist, Sound Editing/Mixing.

 

Robert has performed internationally and is now concentrating on his original compositions, as well as his traditional playing in concerts and recordings.