A pianist, Șirli specialises in easy listening, film, incidental and classical music.
He studied at the National University of Music Bucharest, was an editor at Editura Muzicală and became director at Electrecord and at Disneyland Paris.
He was born in a Megleno-Romanian family originating from villages in the north of Greece who migrated to Romania in the 1920s.
In 1972, Șirli became editor at Editura Muzicală, and from 1980 to 1984, he was artistic director at the Romanian record label Electrecord, the only in Romania at the time.
[2] In 1978, after composing music for a poem by poet and playwright Marin Sorescu for the 60th anniversary of the Great Union, journalist Tudor Vornicu [ro] asked him to compose music for a short film by Constantin Chelba, and as a result, he was recommended to theater director Dan Micu, starting his debut as an incidental music composer.