Biography

He was born on 1.4. 1976 in Slovenj Gradec. His father was an enthusiastic chess player and a fan of the world champion in chess Robert Fischer, so the decision for the son’s name was not very hard.The first six years he lived in Velenje. He has loved accordion since the day he heard it for the first time. Robert remembers: “Those were magic moments, when I was listening my mother’s gramophone for hours and started to get familiar with the music from Slavko Avsenik, Lojze Slak and with the folk music in general. Although I was only 3 or 4 years old, I could already differentiate between different records on the basis of their covers and so I played my first role of a DJ.
I spent a lot of time in front of the doors of a few years older neighbors, who were learning to play the accordion. “

The first song, that he learned to play on diatonic accordion was folk song Jaz pa pojdem na Gorenjsko. The song taught him his uncle Ladi on his own accordion and Robert was very proud of himself.  The wish to play a diatonic accordion became even stronger.

When he and his mother moved to Šentilj pri Velenju, his stepfather Martin gave him in second class of elementary school the first accordion. Robert remembers: “My first accordion was about 70 year old and leaked air. Maybe was that the reason why I caught cold so often, “he laughs. As nine-year-old boy he starts to pull and press it and to play. At first of course rather to pull and press as to play.

Right from the start he began to perform in his home village and in the nearby towns at different entertainments, meetings, etc. As any other young musician Robert also had his role models. At first this was Franc Mihelič, later on Slavko Avsenik and the music from Brother Avsenik, Brane Klavžar and Professor Zoran Lupinc.

“At the beginning of my music carrier my teachers were Mr. Zdravko Dolinšek and Mr.  Slavko Kovše, later on I started to take music lessons with Mr. Franci Zeme and last but not least with Mr. Brane Klavžar. I am very grateful to all of them and to all others, who stood by my side at that time and helped me. Of course I must not forget my stepfather, who persistently drove me to my music lessons, and for that I am very grateful.”

Then the first competitions started and at the beginning it did not go everything according to plan. In 1988 there was a contest in Laško and Robert did not make it to semi-final, which took place in Ljubečna. That made him very sad. So Robert learned at the young age that in life you have to fight to succeed.

In 1993 Robert started to take lessons with Brane Klavžar and now the chips were down. Beside the high school Velenje, which also took its time, he regularly took accordion lessons and practised several hours a day. In the same year he won his first and last silver award of Ljubečna and in the following 2 years 2 gold awards followed. In 1994 he won the Audience Choice award.

In 1997 he won in the show “Po domače” on RTV SLO with the presenter Jože Galič, where many of the young accordion players tried their luck and showed their talent. His price was the RUTAR accordion. In the same year he also won the European Competition in Attimis in Italy.
During that time he was studying at Faculty of economics in Maribor.

Now there was only one goal left: world championship. The first world champion became in 1987 Mr. Zoran Lupinc and this was the big challenge for Robert. He wanted to be a member of an elite club of accordion player, who won this ultimate price.

In 1999 he entered the world championship, which took place in Monsano near Ancona in Italy. Robert Goter won the title World Champion in playing the Styrian diatonic accordion.