Jin captured seven moments of the man's life and turned them into songs, including Sail, Island of Stained Glass and Shore by the Flowers. In January 2017, under his baton, the Rainbow Chamber Singers began performing the seven songs at the concert hall of the Shanghai Symphony Orchestra during their regular concerts. On June 30, the choir released seven songs on the album, The Songs of Eventide.
"When I showed the seven songs to the choir members, they enjoyed the songs but found it's hard to sing them. The lyrics are abstract. They're about oceans, mountains, winds and clouds, and the singers had to use their voices to portray the scenes in the songs, rather than a concrete story," Jin says, adding that he composed the solo parts for alto and bass rather than the traditional soprano or tenor.
"The songs challenged me and the choir," Jin adds.
For the audiences, who were introduced to the choir through such hit songs as Where On Earth Did You Leave the Key to My Apartment, Zhang Shichao? and 2016's So Far, The Sofa Is So Far, which depicts the hectic daily lives of young people, the new songs offer a different kind of choral singing and entertains.
Born in Wenzhou, Zhejiang province, Jin learned to play the piano during his childhood and participated in local school choirs. In 2007, he joined a conducting program at the China Conservatory of Music in Beijing and learned choral singing and songwriting. A year later, Jin was transferred to the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, where he and some schoolmates founded the Rainbow Chamber Singers in 2010.
