We were lucky to catch up with Shisheng Song recently and have shared our conversation below.

Shisheng, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Earning a full time living from one’s creative career can be incredibly difficult. Have you been able to do so and if so, can you share some of the key parts of your journey and any important advice or lessons that might help creatives who haven’t been able to yet?

Yes, I used to have a full-time living as a professional orchestral violinist in China right after I graduated from college. I joined that orchestra from day 1 after I graduated from college, but I prepared for the orchestral audition for a very long time while I studied in college and also get a lot of intern playing experience in professional orchestra while I studied in college. These experience makes my audition pretty smooth.

While I studied in college, I decided to join a professional orchestra as a violinist after I graduated, I made this decision because I always played in a local professional orchestra while I studying in college, during that time, I learn a lot from the chief conductor, the guest conductors, and the concertmaster of the orchestra, these made me had more comprehensive orchestra understandings for orchestral culture, and how to get prepared for the concerts.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Yes! My name is Shisheng Song, I am a violinist and also a violin teacher.

I learned to play the violin when I was 6 years old, then I joined Tianjin Conservatory of Music pre-school to pursue a professional career. I got training there for 3 years, during I was in that school, I represented the school to participate in a lot of concerts, music festivals and competitions, when I graduated from school, I hold the string quartet recital and chamber music concert.

After graduated from the Tianjin Conservatory of Music pre-school, I attended Tianjin Conservatory of Music, according my performance in pre-college, they waived my audition, and I broke the academic score record of the school to get into the college.

After graduated from school, I joined a professional orchestra, so my “clients” are audience. I performed in the orchestra in concerts. Beside the symphony concerts, I also gave chamber concerts, educational concerts and some community concerts in schools, hospitals and libraries. These special concerts and events set me apart from others, made more audience know me, and more people want to listen my music. And some of my potential customers will find me after listen to my concerts, this made me very proud.

Also, in my career, I was not only giving concerts domestically, not only give community concerts, I also had a lot of international performance experience. I toured Italy, Bulgaria, Poland, Taiwan, etc,. These experience made my career richer, while giving concerts in these different countries, it also inspired me about playing style, made my playing more interesting, and also I played in China embassy for customer, to bring some Chinese special pieces, and exchange the cultural differences .

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

A story about my resilience is about when I decided to come to the U.S.A, as a foreigner I need to pass the TOEFL exam, but when I prepare for that exam, I have a full-time professional orchestra job, I need to rehearse at the day time, and I need to perform in concerts at night. That means I don’t have any time to participate in English learning institutions.

So I prepared the exam, learn English by myself.

It’s a difficult thing, I learned English at school, but for TOEFL, it was different and more difficult.

I had to organized my time precisely, and made a very detailed plan about it, and finally I made it, pass the exam in time and get a good result.

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

As a musician, I could find my own voice to press myself.

Music could press very complicated feelings, emotions. Whatever the emotion is, you could find a kind of music to describe it and press it. And when I played the music and press this kind of feeling pr emotion, I could feel the feedback from audience, this kind of emotion exchange is the best part of music and the performance.

Also, when I play the chamber music, I need to play with other people, this makes me made a lot of friends, we have same interests and we could play together, this makes the life more interesting and colorful.