She studied composition with Andrzej Koszewski at the State Higher School of Music in Poznań. She participated in numerous courses in composition and electronic music in Poland and abroad (‘Musicul-tura’ in Breukelen, the M. Deutsch Symphonic Workshop in Paris, courses organized by ircam in Kraków and by the Polish Society for Contemporary Music in Rydzyna and Wzdów). She also played the violin in the Poznań Philharmonic Orchestra and the ‘Amadeus’ Polish Radio Chamber Orchestra of Agnieszka Duczmal.
has received commissions from Polish Radio, the Solidarity Union, the Eighth Day Theatre, the Holland Dance Festival, Euro-Musik-Theater in Stuttgart, the Dutch ensemble ‘de Ereprijs’, Radio Sweden, and the Ministry of Culture of Baden-Württemberg. She worked as guest composer in the Electronic Music Studio ipem/brt in Ghent and the Electronic Music Studio in Stokholm, and as composer-in-residence at the Institute de la Musique Electroacoustique in Bourges.
Her works have been performed by Ensemble InterContemporain, ‘de Ereprijs’, Notabu Ensemble Neue Musik, Ensemble Ars Nova and the Schola Cantorum Gedanensis chamber choir. The conductors who presented her orchestral compositions have included Jan Krenz, Antoni Wit, Jerzy Maksymiuk and Daniel Gazon.
Lidia Zielińska has extensively published and lectured on contemporary Polish music, electroacoustic music, the history of experimental music, sound ecology and traditional Japanese music. Her lecture venues have ranged from various European universities, the ‘Manggha’ Centre for Japanese Art and Technology in Kraków, the Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw, the World Forum for Acoustic Ecology in Stockholm and Peterborough, as well as numerous academic sessions in Poland and abroad. She has taught and given summer courses, seminars and workshops in Poland, France, Holland, Japan, Canada, Moldova, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden and Be-larus.
Lidia Zielińska runs a composition class at the Music Academy in Poznań and the sound reception workshop at the city’s Fine Arts Academy. She is a member of the Repertoire Committee of the ‘Warsaw Autumn’ Festival (1989–92 and from 1996) and of the Presidium of the Main Board of the Polish Composers’ Union (from 2001). She served as Artistic Director of the ‘Poznań Musical Spring’ Festival of Contemporary Polish Music (1989–92) and of the ‘Child and Sound’ International Festival in Poznań. She was also a member of the Programme Committee of the iscm World Music Days in Warsaw (1990–92), and has sat on the juries and served as consultant of numerous festivals in Poland, Sweden, Germany and Belarus.

In 2007, Lidia Zielińska received the Polish Composers' Union Award for 'outstanding compositional achievements'.