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Joseph Koo

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Joseph Koo (1931 to 2023) was a composer from Hong Kong, regarded by the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts as one of the city's most respected composers. He was born in Guangzhou and moved with his family to Hong Kong in 1948. At seventeen he began piano lessons with a Filipino teacher who also taught his sister, the singer and painter Koo Mei. In the early 1960s Sir Run Run Shaw sent him to the Berklee College of Music in Boston.

Music and breakthrough

After his studies he worked for the film studios Shaw Brothers and Golden Harvest. He wrote the music for the Bruce Lee films Fist of Fury and The Way of the Dragon in 1972. In 1973 he became music director at the broadcaster TVB. From the late 1970s until he moved to Canada in the 1990s, he wrote many well-known theme songs for television series with the lyricist Wong Jim. In 1974, with The Fatal Irony, he wrote the first Cantonese TV theme song, one of the first popular Cantopop songs. His first published song, Dream from 1961, was sung by his sister.

Influence

Koo wrote more than twelve hundred songs, many of which are regarded as classics of Cantopop. He received the MBE in 1982 and the Bronze Bauhinia Star from the Hong Kong government in 1998, and won prizes at film festivals. In 2007 he wrote the theme song for The Drive of Life, the series marking ten years of Hong Kong since the handover. In 2012 he gave a concert at the Hong Kong Coliseum, and in 2015 he stopped conducting to take up oil painting, like his sister. He died in 2023 in Canada.

Listening

Listening tip. Listen to his music for The Way of the Dragon and notice how orchestra and fight scenes work together: the music sets the tempo of the action.

Discography

Studio albums

In School of Rock

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Categories: Artists