After winning the Grand Prize in the 1959 Prague Spring Festival International Competition of Woodwind Instruments, in which J.P. Rampal awarded him the full number of points for his final performance of Ibert concerto, he established himself as a recitalist and recording artist; as a soloist in concertos he played with nearly all Czech orchestras. International tours as a soloist in recitals and broadcasts throughout Europe followed, as did his participation in festivals - Prague Spring, Brno, Czech Performing Artists, Czech Composers, Avignon and Cannes. He recorded all major works for the Prague Radio and his debut LP Supraphon recital was subsequently released by Colombia-Nippon and Connoisseur Records in the U.S. His second LP - Martinu Flute Sonatas resulted in him representing, as one of the three classical music recitalist, Czechoslovakian Republic and Supraphon, at the 1968 M.I.D.E.M. in Cannes. His emigration in 1968 resulted in all his radio recordings and discography being destroyed by the communist regime and his name deleted from the Prague Spring Competitions laureates.

After leaving Czechoslovakia, he played with the Basler Radio at Rotterdam Phil, before resuming teaching at a Musicpedagogic Institut in Sweden. Appointed as a residential artist at the University of Adelaide in 1973 [as a Lecturer and finishing as a member of professorial staff and Dean of Music] he combined solo and chamber music performing, teaching and scholarly work. He played concertos in the ABC Major and Youth concert series and gave numerous recitals for the Adelaide Festival of Arts. Apart from standard flute works, he specialised in the repertoire for unaccompanied flute and in the development of the application of the "circular breathing" technique on flute playing. He presented lectures demonstration recitals at the U.S., UK, European, Asian and Australian institutions, as well as at the flute conventions in the U.S. and Australia. He played unaccompanied flute recitals, among others, for his Australian capitals, 1979 U.S. Carnegie Recital Hall and 1982 British Wigmore Hall debuts. Whilst in Australia, Z. Bruderhans undertakes regular overseas tours as a soloist in recitals, broadcasts and festivals - Janácek Festival, Prague Mozart Week, Festum Musicae, Saptamana Internationala a Muzici noi [Bucuresti] and Stratford Flute Festival. He was a residential artist at the Sechuan Conservatorium [China] and at the Malmö Musikhögskolan. In 1991 he was one of the adjudicators of the Prague Spring Festival flute competition. His performance of Mozart concerto in 1996 resulted in an instant invitation to present Ibert concerto four times with the Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra in 1997.

After his emigration, he contributed to the discography by recording Valentini's flute concerto with the Deutsche Bachsolisten for Philips; In Sweden, he produced a 3 LP set of works for unaccompanied flute - Flute Anthology Zdenek Bruderhans - which was released in Australia by EMI through the World Record Club label. Canadian Aquitaine released "The Fabulous Flute" which included Paganini's Moto Perpetuo, played employing the circular breathing. Digital recording was a great impetus and after his experiments and studies he decided to control all aspects of production. His first accessible sample of his endeavours is the CD "Zdenek Bruderhans Almanacs", originally a CD accompanying his book, after which 19 CD's were released through the ARBITRIUM label.

Another major Bruderhans’s interest is examination of musical communication and performance. These examinations resulted in the three books, published by Bruderhans: MUSIC, TECTONICS AND FLUTE PLAYING, published by Florian Noetzel Verlag, FUNDAMETALS OF MUSICAL PERFORMANCE and its Czech version ZÁKLADY HUDEBNÍHO PREDNESU, the latter welcomed by Milan Kundera as a:“very beautiful book, very close to him”.

In 2004 Zdenek Bruderhans was appointed as a honorary member of Societas Martinu. From 2007 he is an Artistic director of the IBF International Flute Festival Hlucín [Czech Republic]. Listed in numerous “Who’s who in Europe, U.S., UK and Australia, he is a Research Fellow of the American Biographical Institute.