Carter Brey was appointed principal cellist of the New York Philharmonic in 1996, and made his subscription debut as soloist with the orchestra the following year in Tchaikovsky's Rococo Variations led by then-Music Director Kurt Masur. He has appeared as soloist with many of America's major symphony orchestras. With the Philharmonic, he has performed in the Haydn C Major Concerto under Music Director Jaap van Zweden; in the Barber, Dvorák, Elgar, and Schumann cello concertos under then-Music Director Alan Gilbert; in Richard Strauss's Don Quixote with music directors Lorin Maazel and Zubin Mehta; in the Brahms Double Concerto with then-Concertmaster Glenn Dicterow and conductor Christoph Eschenbach, as well as with Lorin Maazel on the orchestra's 2007 European tour; in William Schuman's A Song of Orpheus with conductor Christian Thielemann; and in the Boccherini Cello Concerto in D with conductor Riccardo Muti. He also performed the Brahms work at Tanglewood Music Center in the summer of 2002 as part of Kurt Masur's final concerts as the Philharmonic's music director.