[1] Depkat was educated in Canada,[2][3] but returned to Germany in 1958 and matriculated to Hamburg's Staatliche Hochschule fur Musik,[2] studying under A.
[1] In 1960, she won a scholarship,[2][3] and moved back to Canada and studied with Lorne Munroe at that year's International String Congress in Puerto Rico.
Depkat went on to study with Eugene Eicher in Pittsburg the following year and joined George Neikrug's class at the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music in Ohio in 1962.
[1][5] Depkat went on to receive first prize at the Boston National Instrumentalist Competition in 1967,[4] and was later appointed the American representative of Jeunesses Musicales at Expo 67 in Montreal for whom she went on tour in European countries such as Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy and the Netherlands as well as the United States.
[2] Depkat won first prize at the 10th CBC Talent Festival and was named a diploma winner at Casals Competition in Budapest the year after.
[4] She was selected by the Boston-based Group W station WBZ-TV as the United States' outstanding young instrumentalist in July 1967, earning a scholarship to New England Conservatory of Music.
That same year, she played Joseph Haydn's Concerto in D with John Barnett's National Orchestral Association Orchestra at Carnegie Hall.
[1][4] Depkat gave the Canadian premieres of Alberto Ginastera's Serenata in Vancouver in 1975 and Krzysztof Penderecki's Capriccio for solo cello at the 1976 Guelph Spring Festival.