OLLI101434 - HOT OFF THE PRESS - Beethoven In Beijing

Course Description

Beethoven in Beijing
Stories from the Philadelphia Orchestra’s Historic Journey to China

Date/Time: September 23, 1-2 PM
Location: Online via Zoom  

In 1973, Western music was banned in the People’s Republic of China. But in a remarkable breakthrough cultural exchange, the Philadelphia Orchestra conducted a tour of closed-off China, becoming the first American orchestra to visit the communist nation. Jennifer Lin’s Beethoven in Beijing provides a fabulous photo-rich oral history of this boundary-breaking series of concerts the orchestra performed under famed conductor Eugene Ormandy.

Author: Jennifer Lin is an award-winning journalist, author, and documentary filmmaker. She created and codirected the feature-length documentary, Beethoven in Beijing, which premiered on PBS’s Great Performances in 2021. For 31 years, she worked at the Philadelphia Inquirer as a reporter, including posts as a foreign correspondent in China, a financial correspondent on Wall Street, and a national correspondent in Washington, DC. She is the author of Shanghai Faithful: Betrayal and Forgiveness in a Chinese Christian Family and coauthor of Sole Sisters: Stories of Women and Running.