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William Gerlach was appointed Principal Trumpet of the National Symphony Orchestra by Christoph Eschenbach in 2014. He grew up in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin where he 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.

Gerlach has performed as guest principal trumpet with the New York Philharmonic and Philadelphia Orchestra. He’s been a faculty member at the National Symphony Orchestra's Summer Music Institute, Aspen Music Festival and School, DePaul School of Music, and Curtis Summerfest. He is currently adjunct faculty at the Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore, Maryland.

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