The Rainbow Chamber Singers (RCS) were founded in 2010 by conductor Jin Chengzhi and a small group of his fellow students at the prestigious Shanghai Conservatory of Music. The choir puts on a concert every six months, performing old favorites and newly written traditional-style choral pieces. Since 2016, Jin has also been mixing it up with his own compositions, which mix serious music with comedic lyrics and social commentary.
“Where On Earth Did You Leave the Key, Zhang Shichao?” a kazoo-heavy castigation of ungrateful roommates, was the choir’s first major hit. They followed it with “So Far, the Sofa is So Far,” an anthem for China’s “overtime dogs,” the millions of underpaid millennials working long hours for abusive bosses. Their new song “A Spring Festival Survival Guide” has attracted more than a million views on various platforms in the past month.
The choir’s music deals with stresses common to young people, which arouses unexpected attentions. On the other hand, the Rainbow Chamber Singers are keen to reinvent the genre of choir. “Good music must be diverse,” Jin said. “If you stick to something for no reason, the art will lose its original charm.” Their approach has proved a hit with audiences of all ages.
The Unreasonable episode features on The Rainbow Chamber Singers latest work, from rehearsal to performance, with interviews from their members and fans, unveils the real purpose and meaning of The Rainbow Chamber Singers.