Schlierf was born in 1969 and grew up in Bad Kötzting in the Bavarian Forest with four siblings. He and his brothers sang folk songs as well as Barbershop classical songs and songs by the Comedian Harmonists, and in the boys’ choir of the Regensburger Domspatzen.
He studied viola at the Hochschule für Musik in Nuremberg with Hans Kohlhase and in Frankfurt with Jörg Heyer, as well as with Garth Knox and Johannes Lüthy at the Musikhochschule Freiburg. He also attended master classes for chamber music with Hatto Beyerle and Walter Levin at the Musik- Akademie der Stadt Basel. From 1995 to 2006 he was principal violist of the Ensemble Resonanz in Hamburg. Since 2000 he has been living in Berlin. He is a founding member of the Sonar Quartet, and Ensembekollektiv Berlin, and a regular guest with ensembles including KNM Berlin, LuxNM and Adapter Ensemble, Asian Art Ensemble, the Festival Ensemble Ostravská banda, and Klangforum Heidelberg. As a lecturer he was a guest with the Kohar Orchestra in Gyumri/Armenia and at the Academy of Music in Almaty/Kazakhstan.
He is designing own pieces and solo performances, in performances with guitarist Andreas Willers or the Trickster Orchestra he plays improvised music. Together with Andrew Digby (trombone), he is building up a new repertoire for the appealing combination viola/trombone, the Duo “Brosautsch”. As a tenor he is singing in the congregation of Werder/Havel. His instruments are a viola from the workshop of the master Wilhelm Brückner, an asymmetrical viola by Gerhard Klier and a small Bohemian baroque viola.