William Gerlach was appointed Principal Trumpet of the National Symphony Orchestra by Christoph Eschenbach in 2014. Gerlach grew up in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin and studied with Mark Niehaus of the Milwaukee Symphony throughout high school. He attended Indiana University for his undergraduate degree under the instruction of John Rommel, and he spent time working on his master’s degree at Northwestern University and Rice University with Barbara Butler, Charles Geyer, and Christopher Martin. As a student, he attended the Aspen Music Festival and School twice, once as a New Horizons trumpet fellow and once with the Third Street Brass Quintet.

Gerlach has been a faculty member at the National Symphony Orchestra’s Summer Music Institute, Aspen Music Festival, and School and Curtis Summerfest. He has also performed with the Milwaukee Symphony, New World Symphony, and the Arizona Musicfest Festival Orchestra.

During the Spring of 2021, William Gerlach and Russel Weismann teamed up to record “Heroic Expressions,” a collection of works for Trumpet and Organ by Henri Tomasi, Jean Langlais, and Georg Philipp Telemann. William is a Yamaha performing artist.