Joseph Koo
| Joseph Koo | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chinese name | 顧嘉煇 | ||||||||
| Chinese name | 顧嘉煇 (traditional) | ||||||||
| Chinese name | 顾嘉辉 (simplified) | ||||||||
| Pinyin | gu4 jia1 hui1 (Mandarin) | ||||||||
| Jyutping | gu3 gaa1 fai1 (Cantonese) | ||||||||
| Birth name | Gu Gaa-fai (顧嘉煇) | ||||||||
| Origin | Hong Kong | ||||||||
| Born |
1 January 1933 Guangzhou, China |
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| Other name(s) | Moran (莫然) gu gaa-fai (顧家輝) |
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| Occupation | Composer, arranger, Musical Director, Conductor, very occasional lyricist | ||||||||
| Genre(s) |
Mandopop, jingles, Children's song (early career) Cantopop, Hong Kong musical tongue twister |
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| Instrument(s) | Piano, Xylophone | ||||||||
| Label(s) | None | ||||||||
| Years active | 1962–2015 | ||||||||
| Ancestry | Guangdong | ||||||||
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Awards
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Joseph Koo Kar-Fai, GBS (born 1 January 1933 in Guangzhou, China) is one of the most respected composers in Hong Kong. He used the pen name Moran (莫然) for Mandarin songs early in his career. He has two siblings: an older sister, the famous Chinese singer/painter Koo Mei (顧媚), and a younger brother, Koo Kar-Tseung (顧嘉鏘).
Koo was sponsored by Sir Run Run Shaw to attend the Berklee College of Music in Boston in the early 60s. Upon graduation he returned to Hong Kong and worked for both the Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest movie studios, scoring, among others, the Bruce Lee films Fist of Fury and Way of the Dragon in 1972. Later he joined TVB as their director of music, where from the late 1970s until immigrating to Canada in the 1990s, he collaborated with the lyricist Wong Jim on many memorable TV theme songs. Koo has composed over 1,200 songs in his career, many of his songs are now considered as classic Cantopop. He only has 2 notable works as a lyrcist, but they are both very short in length and toal number of words. One was a children's song about the ten numbers, the other was the ending 'Goodnight' jingle for Enjoy Yourself Tonight.
In 1961, he composed his first hit (Mandarin Chinese) song 夢 ( meng means "dream"), which was sung by his sister Koo Mei and later another hit song 郊道. In 1974, he wrote the first Cantonese TV theme song (啼笑姻緣) which was the actual first popular Cantopop song.
Koo received Member of Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1982. In 1998, he received the Bronze Bauhinia Star from the Hong Kong Government. He also received other awards including Music Accomplishment Award (from Composers and Authors Society of Hong Kong Ltd.), Highest Honour Award (from RTHK Ten Best Chinese Music Program), Best Music Award and Best Lyric Award (from Asia Film Festival), Hong Kong Film Awards, Taiwan's Golden Horse Film Festival and Awards and many others.
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