Vita

Ansgar Schlei studied Protestant church music at the Hanover University of Music and Theater with Cornelius Schneider-Pungs and Pier Damiano Peretti (artistic organ playing), Hans-Joachim Rolf (liturgical organ playing) as well as Gerrit Zitterbart (piano), Peter-Anton Ling (singing) and Hildebrandt Haake (choir conducting).   
He completed additional organ studies with Bine Katrine Bryndorf (Copenhagen), Carlo Hommel (Luxembourg), Ton Koopman (Amsterdam), Michael Radulescu (Vienna), Reinhold Richter (Mönchengladbach) and Harald Vogel (Bremen).

In the summer of 2005 he passed his church music A-exam with distinction in artistic organ playing.
He also studied law in Göttingen, Hagen and Cologne.

In 2000, Ansgar Schlei was temporarily organist in the Christ Pavilion at the EXPO world exhibition in Hanover.
After working as a church musician in Springe and Hanover, he followed the call of the Evangelical Church in 2001 at Petri Pauli parish in Bad Münder am Deister, where he worked primarily as an organist and choir director as well as artistic director of the concert series “Klanghorizonte Bad Münder” and the “Abendmusiken Bad Münder” that he initiated.
 
From 2004 to 2008, Ansgar Schlei was Vice President of the Association of Protestant Church Musicians in the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Hanover. In his role as a board member of the Hanover Church Musicians Association, he was also a member of the Labor and Service Law Commission of the Confederation of Protestant Churches in Lower Saxony for some time.

In December 2005 he accepted the call to the Willibrordi Cathedral in Wesel, where he has worked as Director of Music since April 2006. He is also the district cantor in the Wesel church district of the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland.
He is also the head of a training course for part-time church musicians in the Lower Rhine region and a member of the state church church music examination committee.

Since 2020, Ansgar Schlei has been chairman of the Association for Church Music in the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland e.V.

In 2022 he was awarded the title of “Church Music Director” by the Evangelical Church in the Rhineland for his services to church music.

His extensive concert activities regularly take him throughout Germany and neighboring countries. Several CD productions as well as radio and television recordings complement his extensive musical work.