While still a student at the College of Music in Lübeck he played as principal solo cellist with the Lübeck Philharmonic Orchestra, but relinquished this position to pursue the many solo engagements which followed from prizes in competitions such as the "Premio Stradivari" in Cremona in 1991, the competition of the German Colleges of Music in Düsseldorf, the German Music Competition in Bonn in 1994, and the International Music Competition in Geneva in 1995.

As well as playing in the quartet, Eckart Runge has long been interested in devising performances in which several different art forms converge. In 1998 he developed the 'CelloProject' in order to present chamber music for the cello in a new, contemporary way, and thereby to gain a wider audience for complex music. (see the web-site www.celloproject.de). Thus he has performed with the pianist Jacques Ammon in several programmes based on the tango, and presents a 'visual concert' with two mime-artists from Marcel Marceau's company.