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Robert has held contracts as a bassist in the Sydney, Queensland and Adelaide Symphony Orchestras, the Australian Opera and the Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra, and was engaged as the bassist for the 1997 Darwin International Guitar Festival, where he performed chamber works with guitarist John Williams. He has taught double bass at the University of Queensland and the Queensland Universtiy of Technology.

Holding degrees from the University of Queensland (B. Mus first class 1988) and Queensland Conservatorium (Grad. Dip. Performance 1993), he has studied double bass with Ian Webber (Academy of St Martins in the Fields), Ken Poggioli, John Fardon (Queensland Symphony Orchestra) and Francois Rabbath (Paris). He has recently completed a PhD in composition at the University of Queensland.

He travelled to Kerala, South India in 1992 to study traditional music and dance of the region, including vocal music with Kavalam Sreekumar. In 1995 he travelled to San Francisco, New York and London on a Churchill Fellowship which involved intensive private composition lessons at the residence of Terry Riley, and an immersion in the new music scenes of the three cities. He has since interviewed many of today's leading composers, including LaMonte Young, Steve Reich, John Zorn, Michael Gordon, Philip Glass, Tan Dun, Lois Vierk, Cecil Taylor, John Adams and Louis Andriessen. A book of interviews is currently in preparation.