Gaby Pas-Van Riet (b. 1959, Essen, Belgium) is an internationally renowned flautist, soloist, and pedagogue with a distinguished career in performance, teaching, and jury work. She began her musical training at an early age and studied at the Royal Flemish Academy of Music in Antwerp, where she obtained the solo diploma for flute and a first prize in chamber music while completing her secondary education. At the age of fourteen, she was admitted as a Young Student to the University of Music in Cologne, supported by a Belgian government scholarship, where she studied with Prof. Schwegler, principal flutist of the WDR. She received the solo diploma with distinction in Cologne in 1979 and pursued further advanced studies in Basel with Peter-Lukas Graf, graduating with distinction in 1982.
Her early career was marked by major international competition successes, including prizes in Markneukirchen, Aberdeen, and Munich, the Gold Medal at the George Cziffra Competition in Paris, and a prize at the ARD International Music Competition. As an orchestral musician, she served as principal flute of the Orchestra of the European Community and later of the SWR Radio Symphony Orchestra Stuttgart. She was also invited as guest principal flutist by leading orchestras such as the New York Philharmonic and the Berlin Philharmonic and is a long-standing member of the Bayreuth Festival Orchestra.
Alongside her performing career, she has pursued an extensive pedagogical activity. She has held professorships in Antwerp and Saarbrücken and, since 2018, has been Professor of Flute at the Musica Mundi School. She regularly gives international masterclasses and serves on competition juries.
