Robert Bonisolo was born in 1966 in Niagara Falls, Canada. He studied at Berklee College of Music and the Banff School of Fine Arts, and in 1987 won both the Canadian Rising Star Award and the American Rising Star Award. In 1990, at 24, he moved to Italy and enrolled at the Conservatorio di Ferrara, completing a five-year classical saxophone diploma. He has lived and worked in Italy ever since: his first Discogs-documented recording session dates from 1993, three years after the move, and his entire professional discography (35 Discogs release credits across 1993-2023) was made in Italy, almost entirely for Italian labels and alongside Italian musicians.

His longest-running association is with Riccardo Brazzale's Lydian Sound Orchestra, a Veneto big band he has recorded with on and off since its 1993 album Melodious Thunk through at least 2022, playing tenor, alto and soprano saxophone across albums including Timon Of Athens Suite (1995), Monk At Town Hall & More (2002), Back To Da Capo (2008), Reflections (2012), We Resist! (2018) and Mare 1519 (2019). On the orchestra's 2022 album No More Wrong Mistakes (This Our Music), Bonisolo is Discogs-credited on soprano and tenor saxophone alongside American saxophonist David Murray, who arranged the record and soloed on it; the same personnel includes Marcello Abate on guitar.

Bonisolo's teaching career is built directly into the Italian conservatory system. Since 2003 he has taught saxophone and improvisation at the Centro Didattico Musicale Teatro Danza di Rovereto, and he also teaches jazz ensemble at the Conservatorio di Vicenza "Arrigo Pedrollo." In 2006 he added a professorship in saxophone and improvisation at the Haute Ecole de Musique (HEMU) in Lausanne, Switzerland, and a standing teaching role at the International Saxophone Festival in Faenza, Italy. That Vicenza teaching connection surfaces directly in his discography: in 2023 he and fellow Vicenza instructor Pietro Tonolo were guest soloists, alongside pianist Paolo Birro, on Il Testamento dell'Albero (Caligola), a tribute album Marcello Abate and three fellow former Vicenza conservatory students made for their late friend and classmate, pianist Marco Birro (1993-2020).

As a sideman, Bonisolo has repeatedly crossed paths with visiting American and international players working in Italy and Europe. He is Discogs-credited on tenor saxophone, alongside pianist Antonio Faraò and Swiss-Italian flugelhornist Franco Ambrosetti, on the Antonio Faraò Quartet's Expose (1996, Dischi Della Quercia). In 2008 he recorded Remember The Sound (TCB Records) with the Swiss George Robert Jazztet, a tribute to Michael Brecker featuring trumpeter Randy Brecker as special guest, with arrangements by American pianist Jim McNeely. In 2016 he recorded two albums with bassist Miroslav Vitous: Ziljabu Nights (Live At Theater Gütersloh) (Intuition Records), alongside drummer Roberto Gatto, and the ECM release Music Of Weather Report. Earlier sideman dates include alto saxophonist Cristina Mazza's 360° Circular (1999, with baritone saxophonist Bruno Marini), guitarist Michele Calgaro's Round About Monk (2007), Progressions (2011) and Full Score (2019), and bassist Pierluigi Balducci's L'Equilibrista (2020), a John Taylor memorial album. He also appears on two Gerardo Frisina records on the Schema label, Will You Walk A Little Faster? and Join The Dance (both 2010), tagged Jazz/Latin with bossa nova and Afro-Cuban styling rather than his usual straight-ahead idiom.

According to his own published biography and curriculum, Bonisolo has also performed or studied alongside a longer list of American jazz figures, including Jerry Bergonzi, Joe Viola, John La Porta, George Garzone, Steve Coleman, John Abercrombie, David Liebman, Kenny Wheeler, Dave Holland, Lee Konitz, Steve Swallow and Paolo Fresu; none of these specific pairings is independently itemized at the Discogs credit level, so they are noted here as biographical claims rather than verified recorded connections.

Bonisolo did not record under his own name until 2009's Open The Cage (Almar Records), a quartet date with bassist Aldo Zunino, drummer Mauro Beggio and American trumpeter Kyle Gregory, reviewed by All About Jazz. In 2022 he co-led Third Wave (Gleam Records) with drummer Fabio De Angelis, guitarist Luca De Toni and bassist Ares Tavolazzi; press coverage of the record bills it as De Angelis's own recording debut, with Bonisolo as a featured member of the quartet rather than its leader.

Bonisolo plays in a mainstream, post-bop idiom across tenor, alto and soprano saxophone, a vocabulary shaped as much by his Italian big-band work as by his classical conservatory training. His three decades inside Riccardo Brazzale's Lydian Sound Orchestra, an ensemble that has absorbed repertoire from Thelonious Monk tributes to original big-band writing, sit alongside smaller-group post-bop dates as a leader and guest. His two Gerardo Frisina sideman credits (2010) are the exception to that pattern, a brief turn toward Latin- and bossa-nova-inflected club jazz rather than his usual straight-ahead and big-band work.