Born in Shanghai, Zhou Tengfei made his solo debut with the San Francisco Symphony at the age of 18 performing the third movement of the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto, at the Davies Symphony Hall.

Zhou's first orchestral experience began at the age of 14, performing Shostakovich's Fifth Symphony and concert touring Europe as Assistant Concertmaster of the San Diego Youth Symphony. He was named Concertmaster the following year and concert toured Spain. At the age of 15, upon the invitation of Maestro Ling Tung, Zhou was the youngest participant at the Grand Teton Music Festival Orchestra Seminar, receiving intense coaching from Norman Carol (Former Concertmaster of Philadelphia Orchestra) and Ruben Gonzalez (Former Concertmaster of Chicago Symphony). Two years later, Zhou was named Concertmaster of the award winning San Francisco Symphony Youth Orchestra, receiving weekly coaching from members of the San Francisco Symphony, and concert toured with the ensemble in Italy, Spain and France, including a performance at one of the world's most prestigious festivals, Aix-en-Provance. Zhou has also performed in the Carnegie Hall as a participant of the New York String Orchestra with Jaime Laredo conducting. In the summer of 1996, Zhou was chosen by a jury including Rainer Kuchl (Principal Concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic) and other members of VPO as Concertmaster of the Pacific Music Festival Orchestra, in the festival's finale performance of Tchaikovsky's "Eugene Onegin"(concert version), with concerts in Sapporo and Tokyo's Metropolitan Art Space, Japan. Zhou has also served as Assistant Concertmaster of the 1998 Spoleto Festival Orchestra in Italy.

While a student at the Juilliard School, Zhou served as the Concertmaster of the Juilliard Opera Orchestra and Juilliard Lab Orchestra, as well as Assistant Concertmaster and Principal of the Juilliard Orchestra. Zhou was also a member of the Akron Symphony and Canton Symphony (OH), Sun Valley Summer Symphony (Idaho), and played regularly with the Jupiter Symphony and Brooklyn Philharmonic (NY). In 2001, Zhou was offered two orchestra positions, one by the New World Symphony in Miami and the other by Maestro Gilbert Levine to join the first violin of the Jerusalem Symphony under a one-year cultural exchange scheme. Zhou has studied chamber music with Isidor Cohen, Felix Galimir, Jacob Lateiner, members of the Juilliard String Quartet, and the St. Petersburg String Quartet. Zhou has worked with many well-known conductors in the past, such as Herbert Blomstedt, Christoph Eschenbach, Richard Hickox, Julius Rudel, Gerard Schwarz, Robert Spano and Hugh Wolff.

Zhou had his first violin lesson at the age of four given by his father Zunxian Zhou, a well-known concert violinist and professor at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, and at the age of ten, the young Zhou started to study at the Shanghai Conservatory with Professor Ji-yang Zhao. After moving to USA, Zhou was a scholarship student of Almita Vamos at the Oberlin Conservatory, and as a C.V. Starr Scholarship recipient, furthered his violin studies with Stephen Clapp at The Juilliard School in the Master's programme. Zhou joined the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra in 2001.