How Philly’s orchestra became a rare link between China and the US

Last November, Tristan Rais-Sherman, assistant conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, got his first experience directing Chinese music at the 50th-anniversary joint performance with the China National Symphony Orchestra in Beijing. Leading musicians through the soft tones of “The Moon Reflecting on Er-Quan Spring” was “one of the most challenging things on the program,” he says. “It’s a long piece with all these little phrases that need precise care, like a little jewel.”