China Institute is partnering with Shanghai Sonatas to present Selected Music and Songs from Shanghai Sonatas – a new musical about the Jewish refugee musicians from Nazi Germany who brought classical music to Shanghai and their connection to the millions of classical musicians of Chinese descent today. Based on the memoirs of Jewish refugee musicians who escaped Nazi Germany and found refuge in Shanghai in the 1930s and ’40s, Shanghai Sonatas shares how music helped them to survive the war and how they taught classical music to the local Chinese. Today, countless classical musicians of Chinese descent become the driving force of the field worldwide. China has millions of music students who are directly or indirectly related to this part of the history. The Juilliard School opened its only overseas campus in China in 2019 while the Philadelphia Orchestra now tours China almost annually, as the first western orchestra to visit China in 1973.