While both governments were in the midst of establishing Liaison offices in each other’s capitals, President Richard Nixon sent The Philadelphia Orchestra to Beijing and Shanghai in 1973 to perform for Chinese audiences. While there, the musicians met with their Beijing counterparts from the Central Philharmonic Orchestra. At a rehearsal, Conductor Li Delun handed his baton to a surprised Maestro Eugene Ormandy to conduct the second movement of Beethoven’s Symphony no. 5 in C Minor.