China-US cultural exchanges pick up after pandemic despite downward turn in bilateral ties

50 years ago the Philadelphia Orchestra’s tour of China heralded a thaw in Sino-US ties. Now orchestra players, including one from that tour, are back in China

Meanwhile, American Ballet Theatre is performing in Shanghai and Beijing, and a leading Chinese orchestra has a date for a concert in New York’s Carnegie Hall

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A scene from the American Ballet Theatre’s production of Giselle currently being staged in China. Cultural exchanges with the United States have picked up with the end of the Covid pandemic despite a downturn in relations between the two countries. Photo: Gene Schiavone/American Ballet Theatre

Published: 7:15am, 4 Nov 2023Updated: 9:23am, 4 Nov 2023

Political tensions between China and the United States may still run high, but this has not stopped the cultural dialogue between the two powers that began decades ago.

Members of the Philadelphia Orchestra will return on November 9 for a series of concerts in Beijing, Tianjin, Suzhou and Shanghai to mark its historic performances in China 50 years ago. The American Ballet Theatre, another major US performing troupe, is touring in Shanghai and will perform in the Chinese capital next week.

Meanwhile, China’s Central Conservatory of Music Symphony Orchestra is scheduled to perform at Carnegie Hall in New York on November 24.

For Jennifer Lin, co-director of the 2020 documentary Beethoven in Beijing that goes behind the scenes of the Philadelphia Orchestra’s 1973 visit, musical diplomacy has always been important in forging and fostering diplomatic relations between the two countries.

A still from “Beethoven in Beijing”, which shows how the Philadelphia Orchestra under its conductor Eugene Ormandy (above, left) contributed to the ending of hostility between China and the United States with its 1973 visit. Photo: History Making Productions

In a recent webinar hosted by the US-China Education Trust Lin said that, while many are familiar with “ping-pong diplomacy” – the American table tennis team’s historic trip to China which unleashed a flurry of diplomatic activities – “I would argue that music diplomacy has had a deeper impact on US-China relations”.