Gerald Eckert, born 1960 in Nuremberg, studied after the matriculation physics, from 1985 to 1990 violoncello, piano andconducting at the Meistersinger-Conservatory in Nuremberg and mathematics at the Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg from 1987 to 1992.
Beginning from 1989 he studied composition with Wilfried Jentzsch and continued his studies with Walter Zimmermann in 1992. From 1992 to 1995 he studied composition with Nicolaus A.Huber and electroacoustic composition with Dirk Reith at the Folkwang-Hochschule Essen.
He participated in different composition courses with James Dillon, Brian Ferneyhough and Jonathan Harvey.
1996/97 he was working as a visiting scholar at the CCRMA (Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics) of the Stanford University/ USA. In 1998, he was a lecturer at the International Summer Course for New Music in Darmstadt and at the Akiyoshidai-Festival in Japan. In 2000/2001, he had a lectureship for composition and architecture at the TU Darmstadt and was Composer in Residence at the Züricher Tage für Neue Musik in 2006, additionally undertaking a variety of intermedia projects including dance projects, video installations and projects with interactive lighting control.
Gerald Eckert has received numerous prizes and awards including a prize at the "Luigi-Russolo" competition in Italy 1993, the "Gulbenkian Prize" in Portugal 1993, the 3rd NDR-Prize 1994, He received nominations for the world-music-days 1995, 2004 and 2008. 1995 followed a scholarship at the Fondation Royaumont in France, 1996 he received the "Kranichstein-Preis". He was nominated for the ICMC HongKong 1996 and Singapore 2003. 1997 he received the 3rd Prize of the Biennale '97 Hannover, 1999 he received a scholarship of the Heinrich-Strobel-Stiftung of the SWR, 2003 an award (honorable mention) at the "Salvatore Martirano Competition"/ USA, the 1st prize at the 30th International Competition Bourges 2003/ France. 2005 he received the first prize of the int. "Elisabeth Schneider" competition, a scholarship of the academy of the arts Berlin and the 1st prize of the "Kompositionspreis Stuttgart 2005" and a 2nd prize of the >SYNC. Festivals 2015 in Yekaterinburg/ Russia. He received scholarships for the Centro Tedesco in Venice 2006 (awarded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation), Schreyahn 2009, Villa Aurora/ Los Angeles 2010 (German Federal Foreign Office), Villa Serpentara/ Rome (Olevano Romano) 2010 , artists residence Lukas at Ahrenshoop 2013.
His works have been performed at festivals such as the Ars Musica in Brussels, Eclat Festival Stuttgart, Transit-Festival Leuven, Ultraschall Berlin, Musica Strasbourg, International Summer Courses Darmstadt, Futura Festival Crest/ France, Inventionen Berlin, Nœcleo Mœsica Nueva de Montevideo, Dresdner Tage fŸr zeitgenšssische Musik, Gaudeamus International Music week, Discoveries Aberdeen, Tage für Neue Musik Zürich, Festival Mœsica Nova Sao Paulo, "Melos-Ethos" Festival Bratislava, Sonorities Belfast/ Northern Ireland, "Bernaola" Festival/ Spain, "Slowind" Festival/ Slovenia, Musica Scienza Rome, voix nouvelles Royaumont/ France, among others.
Gerald Eckert works with orchestras, ensembles and musicians including the NDR-Philharmonie, Klangforum Wien, Ensemble Modern, Ensemble Aventure, Ensemble Recherche, Ensemble SurPlus, Formalist Quartet/ Los Angeles, Divertimento Ensemble (Italy), Musikfabrik NRW, ensemble reflexion K, Irvine Arditti, Garth Knox, Teodoro Anzellotti to mention only a few.
2013 a monograph with the title: "An den Rändern des Maßes - der Komponist Gerald Eckert" was released by the publisher Wolke.
CDs has been released at different major labels, e.g. ambitus (2003), col legno (2000 and 2004), NEOS (2008), Edition Zeitklang (2006 and 2008) and mode records (2016).
Since 1989, he has also worked on his own paintings and has organized a series of exhibitions and installations since 1994. Relevant catalogues were published in 1995, 2006 and 2014.
Gerald Eckert is together with Beatrix Wagner artistic director of the "Provinzlärm"-festival Eckernfoerde (biennial music festival since 2007).
From 2012 to 2014, Gerald Eckert was Professor for Composition at the Chung-Ang University in Seoul/ Anseong South Korea.