Gerhardt's debut came in February 1987, when he performed the
Haydn Cello Concerto No. 2 at the
Philharmonie Berlin. He won top prizes in several competitions including the 1990 Deutsche Musikwettbewerb in
Bonn and the
ARD International Music Competition in
Munich that same year. In 1993, he won the International Leonard Rose Cello Competition and in 1994, the
Young Concert Artists Audition in
New York. His international career was launched in 1991 when he made his debut with the
Berlin Philharmonic and
Semyon Bychkov. Gerhardt was a member of the
BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artists scheme from 1999 to 2001. Gerhardt regularly appears with many of the world's leading orchestras such as the
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra,
Berlin Philharmonic,
London Philharmonic Orchestra,
Gewandhausorchester Leipzig,
Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks,
Tonhalle-Orchester Zürich,
Munich Philharmonic and the
Orchestre National de France. In the US, he has appeared with the
Boston Symphony Orchestra,
Chicago Symphony Orchestra,
Cleveland Orchestra,
New York Philharmonic, and the
Philadelphia Orchestra among others. At the 2009
BBC Proms, Gerhardt performed the world premiere of
Unsuk Chin's
Cello Concerto, which Chin composed for him. He subsequently recorded the concerto with the
Seoul Philharmonic Orchestra and
Myung-Whun Chung for
Deutsche Grammophon. He has also collaborated with other composers such as
Thomas Larcher,
Brett Dean,
Jörg Widmann,
Osvaldo Golijov, Mathias Hinke and
Matthias Pintscher. Gerhardt has won three
ECHO Klassik Awards (1998, 2003 & 2009) as well as ICMA and MIDEM Classic awards. His DG recording of Unsuk Chin's Cello Concerto won the
BBC Music Magazine Award in 2015 and was nominated for a
Gramophone Award in 2015. He has made several commercial records for Hyperion. He has also recorded for
Chandos Records. Gerhardt plays a
Matteo Goffriller cello, In 2012, he also began collaboration with
Deutsche Bahn, involving live performances on the main commuter routes in Germany. ==Personal life==