Violinist Jennifer Hsieh Performs Tchaikovsky Without Rehearsal After Last-Minute Calls
On December 9, 2025, violinist Jennifer Chia-Hua Hsieh received an urgent call from the San Francisco Ballet's personnel manager. A first violinist had unexpectedly dropped out of that evening's performance of The Nutcracker at the prestigious War Memorial Opera House. With the curtain rising in just a few hours, Hsieh was asked if she could step in. Without hesitation, she said yes, grabbed her violin, and walked directly into the orchestra pit to sight-read Tchaikovsky's complete two-hour score live before a packed audience, having never rehearsed the music.
Double Emergency Performance
Remarkably, just five days later on December 14, history repeated itself. Another last-minute call came through about another vacant chair. Hsieh returned to the same orchestra pit, this time sitting in the second violin section, and performed the entire ballet from scratch once again. These back-to-back emergency performances highlight the extraordinary demands placed on substitute musicians in professional orchestras and Hsieh's exceptional ability to meet them.
The High-Stakes Venue
The War Memorial Opera House is no ordinary performance space. Opened in 1932, it has served as the home of both the San Francisco Opera and the San Francisco Ballet, hosting everything from world premieres to the signing of the United Nations Charter. The Grammy Award-winning San Francisco Ballet Orchestra performs Tchaikovsky's iconic score live beneath the dancers each holiday season, with the 2025 run marking the production's 21st revival. Tickets for these performances can cost up to $449 each, reflecting the immense artistic stakes involved.
The Art of Sight-Reading Under Pressure
Sight-reading—performing music without prior practice—is considered one of the most demanding skills a musician can possess. It requires instantaneous decoding of notes, rhythms, dynamics, and phrasing while maintaining perfect intonation and musical expression. Performing an entire ballet adds another layer of complexity: the tempo must bend and flex with the dancers onstage, requiring musicians to react to unmarked changes in real time.
"To sight-read the entire Nutcracker is difficult because you need to read two hours of music and perform everything correctly, but you also have to stay flexible and adjust to the dancers' tempo, or any nuances that are not marked in the music," Hsieh explained. She has been the San Francisco Ballet's trusted substitute violinist since 2018, with personnel managers relying on her to jump into the pit when other players fall ill or cannot make performances. There is no safety net—when the lights go down and the conductor raises the baton, Hsieh must perform flawlessly.
A Career Built on Trust and Excellence
Hsieh holds a tenured position in the first violin section of the San Francisco Opera Orchestra, which she earned through a rigorous national audition in 2017. Earning tenure in a major American orchestra is fiercely competitive, requiring candidates to survive multiple blind audition rounds and a demanding probationary period. She has since secured regular substitute positions with both the San Francisco Symphony and the San Francisco Ballet, placing her at the center of San Francisco's classical music world.
Her career before San Francisco reads like an international itinerary. She served as a Fellow at the New World Symphony in Miami, a training orchestra founded by Michael Tilson Thomas. She was invited to the Verbier Festival Orchestra in Switzerland for three consecutive years (2013-2015), one of the world's premier classical music gatherings, where she performed under conductors like Charles Dutoit and alongside soloists such as Yuja Wang. The Houston Symphony brought her on their 2018 European tour, and in 2023, the San Francisco Symphony selected her for their European tour with music director Esa-Pekka Salonen.
"I have been offered work consistently from these top orchestras, and being selected to perform on international tours has been a significant milestone in my career," Hsieh noted.
Beyond the Orchestra Pit
What makes Hsieh's sight-reading ability particularly rare is its reliability under extreme pressure. Substitute musicians in professional orchestras face what many consider the hardest job in music—they must walk into an ensemble that has already rehearsed together, sit among colleagues who know every breath and bow change by heart, and perform at an identical level with minimal preparation. While most substitutes receive at least a day's notice, Hsieh has built her reputation on performing without any advance warning.
Her musical range extends well beyond the orchestral pit. In 2025, she joined the Candlelight Concert Series, performing pop and rock string quartet arrangements at unconventional venues across San Francisco. One particularly challenging assignment in May 2025 asked her to perform thirteen Fleetwood Mac songs with three strangers after just one hour of rehearsal. The performance was successful, leading to more bookings. Hsieh has also been asked to serve as a judge for national auditions, where she now evaluates candidates on the very qualities she has spent her career perfecting: technique, musicality, and adaptability under pressure.
The Unseen Performance
Back at the War Memorial Opera House on those two December evenings, the audience remained completely unaware that a substitute violinist sat in their midst. The Nutcracker unfolded with its usual holiday splendour—Tchaikovsky's effervescent score swelling beneath the dancers, the Snow Scene shimmering, the Sugar Plum Fairy pirouetting. Jennifer Hsieh turned pages she had never seen before and played every note as though she had rehearsed them for weeks. That is the job of a substitute musician. She just happens to be extraordinarily good at it.
