He was born in Līgatne, in 1961, and attended Sigulda Music School, where he played at the brass band of the school, and the Department of orchestra conductors, Riga College of Cultural Workers. Afterwards he studied at the Music Academy of Latvia, under the direction of the professors Gurijs Antipovs and Leonīds Vīgners. At the same time, he sang at the State Academic Choir “Latvija”.

In 1988, Egils Siliņš made his debut at the Latvian National Opera in the role of Mephistopheles at the opera “Mephistopheles” by Arrigo Boito. Later on, he became a soloist at Frankfurt Opera (1990–1993), Basel Opera (1993–1996), Vienna State Opera and Vienna Volksoper (1996–2000). He won international recognition by the role of Mephistopheles in the opera “Faust” by Charles Gounod (1996), and the title role in the opera “Boris Godunov” by Modest Mussorgsky at Vienna Volksoper (1998). After 2003 he asserted himself as a well-known performer of opera music by Richard Wagner.

Since 2000 Egils Siliņš is a an opera artist famous in the wide world. He has performed not only on the stages of Milan’s La Scala, New York Metropolitan Opera, and Covent Garden of London, but also on the stages of many other major opera theatres and festivāls – in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Beirut, Berlin, Budapest, Zurich, Chicago, Dusseldorf, Dresden, Glyndebourne, Hamburg, Koln, Leipzig, Madrid, Munich, Paris, Savonlinna, St.Petersburgh, Tokyo, Toronto and Riga. His repertoire includes more than 90 roles in German, French, Italian and Russian operas, among them: Wotan/Traveller in the tetralogy Ring of the Nibelungs by Richard Wagner, Klingsor and Amfort in Parsifal, Telramund in Lohengrin, as well as the title role in Fliegender Hollander. Also Jochanaan in Salome by Richard Strauss, Orestes in Electra, Mandryka in Arabella, Pizarro in Fidelio by Ludwig van Beethoven, Mephistopheles in Faust by Charles Gounod, Zuniga and Escamilio in Carmen by George Biset, Sir Giorgio in The Puritans by Vincenzo Bellini, and Rodolf in La Sonnambula, Bazilio in Il Balbiere de Sevilia by Gioachino Antonio Rossini, Scarpia in Tosca by Giacomo Puccini, Germont in Traviata, Jago in Othello, the Grand Inquisitor in Don Carlos by Giuseppe Verdi, Silva in Ernani, and Jean Procida in The Sicilian Vespers, as well as title roles in Yevgeny Onegin by Peter Tchaikovsky, The Demon by Alexander Rubinstein, Boris Godunov by Modest Mussorgsky, and Knyaz Igor by Alexander Borodin. Egils Siliņš has successfully cooperated with such conductors as Kiril Petrenko, Christian Thielemann, Simone Young, Philip Jordan and Marek Yanovski.

Egīls Siliņš is three times the winner of the Latvian Great Music Award (in 1996, 2000 and 2015), but for outstanding meritorious service to Latvia has been decorated with the Order of the Three Stars (in 2008).