Spend enough time asking people about Chen Zhao, and you'll start to hear a consistent theme: "Chen knows everybody." That's unsurprising, given his career: Growing up in Shanghai, China, he started playing a homemade violin made from a matchbox and chopstick until he was given a real one at the age of 4; gave his first public performance at the age of 6, and joined the San Francisco Symphony at 25 from a fellowship at Michael Tilson Thomas' New World Symphony, America's preeminent orchestral academy. Zhao has held the position of Second Violin with SFS for 26 years and joined SFCM in 2000.

Chao's impressive performance career is only half of his life's work, though: A dedicated educator, Zhao sat down with SFCM's Newsroom for a Q&A* about his approach to teaching.

SFCM: What is your general approach towards a student joining your studio?
Zhao: My students come from different parts of the world, and they've all had different teachers, and developed different ways of playing: bow-grip, setup. Through the audition process and occasionally one-on-one trial lessons, I get a feel for what I can help them with. Some of them need very specific technical things; so I know there are exercises or hacks I'll be able to share.   And I can show them some, you know, exercise or hacks that I do. And then of course there are great players, who instead need direction in terms of, say, phrasing, starting with the thought process of how you come up with the phrasing and what is actually convincing for the audience.

Everyone has feelings and everybody wants to do their thing, but sometimes it can be just a little too far outside the box. Now, for soloists, sometimes you want to be outside the box, and, you know—as long as you're playing in tune—if you do something really unusual, even controversial, that can actually get some attention. But if you're auditioning for an ensemble like a major orchestra or a chamber group, it's then that you have to know how to work with a team: How to still be able to get your ideas across, but also be able to adapt to others. That's what the Conservatory is for: to prepare everybody to be ready in every possible aspect of what we do in music, whether that's being a soloist, being a chamber music player, or being an orchestra member.

How have you refined that approach over your career?
I learn so much from both my colleagues and my students. Sometimes I'll have lunch with my colleagues and it's, "Hey, this is a problem I haven't been able to solve. I've given the student this exercise or that thing; we try to play together, things like that. But it's not quite working: Do you have any other ideas?" We all share these things, you know, and they'll have similar questions for me.

It's like fixing anything. Someone has a health problem; not every doctor can fix everything. So with my peers, we come up with very educated answers and then I think a student must try them all because you never know which method might work.

Part of what we teach is also how to figure out these problems on your own. Do what your teacher asked you to do, but also, create a little bit of your own workflow in terms of how you can solve a situation. It's not just a direct formula that you apply to every situation, so we educate students to be able to think on their own to figure out what actually works.

Were you taught with a different approach, something more like, "Do exactly what I say?"
Well, I've had many teachers, and some were very black and white in terms of, you know, "Do it my way or walk out of my studio." With one, I repeated a mistake I'd made the previous lesson, and they got up and walked out of their own studio, just left the lesson. And I've had teachers who were really caring and really were very supportive the whole time. But I've learned from both: Either way, you're getting some kind of a lesson from it.

One of my stories is from my freshman year at school, being in an orchestra reading, and I was really tired from the previous nights of quartet readings, and I lost count; I was just kind of putting my violin up when everyone else did. So the conductor, this 80-year-old, really tall, scary guy, and he walked behind the orchestra, stops behind me. He waved at the orchestra because he'd noticed I wasn't counting, so they stop, he stops conducting, and he just physically picked me up with the chair and threw me [laughs]. I just remember being lifted and looking at all my friends, and they were terrified. I was so embarrassed. That's one of those things we don't do here.

But now every time I don't count in the orchestra, that comes back to me: "Better start counting now." So, you know, I did learn a lesson.

What are you looking for in a student when you're first meeting them?
Curiosity. That's really important, that's going to keep them going for decades of a career. Sometimes people who are already really great players, I sense that they already think that they know everything. They don't really want to learn anything from you; they're just here to prove themselves. That's not the right fit for me, because I want to be able to offer things.

I want them to stay curious, because in order to be a really successful musician or teacher, you have to be learning all the time. Because the moment that you think that you know everything, that's when things start to fail. I've talked to so many wonderful teachers and colleagues, and all of the really successful ones have that mindset. Every day is like a treasure hunt for new things to learn—or things to learn not to do. Those are equally important.

This is what's amazing about San Francisco. The Conservatory has incredible concerts: I learn from faculty, students' concerts, guest artists playing with us here or at the Symphony. I learn things when I go to the Ballet and the Opera and SFJAZZ. And that extends to practicing. Musicians who make it genuinely don't mind losing their time practicing. It's like someone who loves video games, can't put them down. They're curious about, "Oh, what if I do this? What if I do that?" That's how you get really good, and it's the same with music. That's what I like to see, and it's inspiring to me when I see a student who has that.

What goes into your process of assessing a student in terms of what you'd like to work on with them?
It really depends. We'll have four years of a bachelor's, two years of a master's, or sometimes one year of a Professional Studies Certificate, or a combination of all the above. So I look at how much time we'll have and that weighs into what I'll address; if it's a specific posture issue or hand frame issue vs a broader issue like intonation or time. It takes time to fix anything, and students come in with tons of muscle memory from playing one posture or one hand frame or with a set sense of intonation or rhythm.

There are non-musical aspects, too. Someone can be really great at the instrument, but they might be very shy or just not used to a group environment, and we can help them make it work. We really do that for every student: The profession itself is very competitive, and we want to make sure they're prepared to deal with that and understand the social norms of this professional field.

Because in order to really make it as a successful musician—it's not just about how good you are as a player. You have to make connections with other people and adapt to different orchestras, different conductors, different musical ideas. That's going to open doors for a lot of things: Sometimes it's not always the way that you interpret the music but how well you can interpret someone else's vision. If you do that really well, they're gonna love you for it and invite you back. I've met a lot of wonderful people who I've kept in touch with and then it's a wonderful network of people in which, a lot of times, we help each other out.

How do you measure progress in a student beyond some of the traditional benchmarks of technique or performance?
It's very subjective. Everyone processes things differently and certain things are way harder to change for some people. Not just physically, but very detailed things like phrasing, so I do allow my students to have the time to move at different paces. So as long as I see that they're making efforts, showing up to lessons, being attentive in academic and studio classes, then they're going to be getting a good grade.

How much emphasis do you place on competitions?
They're one way to get exposure in this industry, but as a student, you have to think of it as another performance opportunity. Whether or not you're going to win, you still gain this performance opportunity.

But you'd be surprised: I talk to some of my friends in management and a lot of times, it's not always the first-prize winner who gets the concert booked. Sometimes it's someone who was really, really great, even though they didn't get first prize. But people really liked them and felt it was a good fit for their management or their performance.

There are many ways to get exposure. The old-school way is through recommendations from people who've heard you: your teachers, people who collaborated with you, conductors. But one shouldn't say, 'Oh, I shouldn't enter any competitions.' Because, especially for younger players, even the regional competitions give you an opportunity to perform with the local orchestra. People don't really go just from the practice room directly to the San Francisco Symphony or New York Philharmonic to solo with them: It takes a while.

What would you tell a student who's making the decision between SFCM and another school?
We have a wonderful team on our Strings faculty and a world-class Music Director and conductor in Edwin Outwater, who's one of my childhood friends; we used to play in the same youth orchestra. We have half of the wonderful Esme Quartet here in [String & Piano Chamber Music Chair] Dimitri Murrath and Wonhee Bae; Kay Stern in the San Francisco Opera orchestra and Cordula Merks in the Ballet; [Strings Chair] Simon James here from the Seattle Symphony; SFCM provides just exceptional performance opportunities and professional connections.

We really stand apart from other schools because SFCM acquired two management companies with hundreds of world-class artists in Askonas Holt and Opus 3 Artists, and students have unparalleled access to these professional musicians with masterclasses and workshops. I'm just astonished every time I look at the calendar, because I think, "I have a concert at the Symphony but I don't want to miss this masterclass [laughs]!" One of my dreams is, when I retire, to go to every concert. I want to go to all my students' concerts, all the ones I missed at the Opera or Symphony.

Learn more about studying violin or strings at SFCM.

*This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.