NEW YORK—His studio just across the street from Carnegie Hall, sculptor Simon Doucet and his wife decided to stroll over to Carnegie Hall to see the Oct. 11 evening performance of the Shen Yun Symphony Orchestra. What they heard and experienced didn’t disappoint.

Mr. Doucet, who works at the Art Students League of New York, expressed his interest in the fusion of different cultural styles. He appreciated the music of Shen Yun, which features ancient Chinese instrumentation accentuated by the grandeur of classical Western symphony.

“I like cross-pollination—the mixing of arts—of Chinese and Western music,” Mr. Doucet said. “For example, my master, my professor is Japanese, and he liked French sculpture, and the relationship between Japanese art and French art and New York art.”

Mr. Doucet was born in France and started studying sculpture from a young age, at the Atelier Potager Du Dauphin, in Meudon, near Paris. He is currently the monitor of the Art Student League stone sculpture studio.

The Art Students League of New York, founded in 1875, has played an instrumental role in the American artistic tradition. Many renowned artists have studied at or worked with the League.

Mr. Doucet felt the orchestra’s combination of the essence of music from both the East and West was an “example [where] I can find about how I am overwhelmed by cross-cultural.”

In Chinese, Shen Yun means “the beauty of divine beings dancing.” As part of its mission to revive 5,000 years of traditional Chinese culture, Shen Yun blazes a brand-new path in the world of classical music.

“Very inspirational, absolutely,” Mr. Doucet said of the performance. “It’s good to see traditional instruments in symphonic orchestra, it’s like research, research in other music.”

Reporting by Tracey Zhu and Leo Timm

Shen Yun Symphony Orchestra is on a seven-city tour with performances in Boston, New York, Washington D.C., Toronto, Chicago, Miami, and Sarasota, through Oct. 27. For more information, visit www.shenyun.com/symphony