Peter Cabus (Mechelen, 1923-2000) began to compose through the encouragement of Godfried Devreese, the former director of the Municipal Conservatory of Mechelen. He began his post-secondary musical studies at the Lemmens Institute (organ with Flor Peeters, piano with Marinus De Jong), but with his eye on a career as a concert pianist he went on to the Royal Conservatory in Brussels (piano with Charles Scharrès, chamber music with André Gertler, composition and fugue with Jean Absil and Léon Jongen). He gradually made his name more as a composer and teacher than as a performing musician. In 1959, after a period teaching at the Municipal Conservatory in Mechelen and several other music academies, Cabus succeeded Devreese as director of the conservatory in Mechelen. In addition, he was active as a teacher at the Royal Conservatory in Brussels (harmony, counterpoint, composition) and at the Muziekkapel Koningin Elisabeth. In 1972 Cabus helped to set up the Mechelen section of the Flanders Festival. Over the last 20 years of his life, Peter Cabus was a member of the Royal Academy for Sciences, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium.