In 1973, the Philadelphia Orchestra was invited by then US President Richard Nixon to go to China following his historic trip there a year earlier. Its performance in front of a fully packed audience at Beijing's Cultural Palace of Nationalities was the first by an American orchestra since 1949 when the People's Republic of China was founded. The orchestra, which has since become well-known among the Chinese, has kept going back over the past decades. Its 100 players returned from China on its 2014 Tour of Asia & China Residency from May 21 to June 6, going to the cities of Beijing, Shanghai and Changsha, capital of Hunan province, and Shenzhen in south China's Guangdong province.