Birgit Ramsl-Gaal

Birgit Ramsl-Gaal is Principal Flute at the Volksoper Vienna and Professor of flute at the mdw – University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna. She attended the University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, studying instrumental teaching and instrumental studies with professors Wolfgang Schulz and Barbara Gisler-Haase and completed the Master Class programme under András Adorján at the University of Music and Performing Arts Munich. 

She draws her inspiration from master classes she attended with Aurèle Nicolet, Pierre-Yves Artaud, Michael Martin Kofler, Jean-Michel Tanguy, János Balint and with Emmanuel Pahud at the "Accademia Chigiana" in Siena. She was awarded grants from the Tokyo Foundation, the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation and the Gustav Mahler Youth Orchestra to which she was invited as Principal Flutist, performing under conductors Pierre Boulez and Ingo Metzmacher.

Birgit Ramsl-Gaal has won many prizes at renown national and international competitions such as "Jugend musiziert" 1996, "Gradus ad Parnassum" 2000, "Musica Juventutis" 2000, "Pacem in Terris" Bayreuth 2001, the "Mozartpreis Wiesbaden 2004" and "Jean-Pierre Rampal" Paris 2005. For her achievements, the flutist was awarded the "Ehrennadel in Silber" by her native city of Krems.

As a soloist, Birgit Ramsl-Gaal has performed all major flute concertos with orchestras such as the Ensemble Orchestral de Paris, the Camerata Hamburg, the Tokyo Chamber Orchestra, the Tonkünstler Orchestra Niederösterreich, the Philharmonia Vienna, the Vienna Symphony Orchestra Baroque Ensemble (Barockensemble der Wiener Symphoniker)as well as the Hongkong Academy Orchestra. In 2014, she gave her debut concerts as a soloist in Japan (at Suntory Hall) and South Korea (at the Seoul Arts Center) with the Symphony Orchestra of the Vienna Volksoper.

Her concerts have led her to appear at notable music festivals such as the Salzburg Festival, the Festival Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, the Carinthian Summer Music Festival, the Rheingau Musik Sommer, the Attersee-Klassik Festival and the Festival Latinoamericano de Música Caracas.

Apart from her work as a soloist, she is also very passionate about chamber music. The chamber music formations she is a member of include the Theophil Ensemble Vienna, the Trio Partout, the ensemble xx.jahrhundert and the Salzburg Orchestra Soloists.

CD recordings of her work as a soloist and a chamber musician, as well as broadcasts on television and on the radio document her musical career.

She holds master classes in Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, South America and Asia and has been a faculty member of the Asian Youth Orchestra in Hongkong since 2015.