Teresa Carpio

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Teresa Carpio is a singer, born in Hong Kong but now living in Canada, known for her powerful voice, diverse repertoire and bubbly personality, who has enjoyed substantial popularity in Hong Kong and other countries, particularly during the 1970s and 1980s. Born into a musical family (her grandfather was a concert violinist and jazz guitarist, her father a noted jazz drummer, and several uncles were also professional musicians), she began her career as a child star, winning Hong Kong's first Amateur Talent Quest in 1963 at the age of 6.

For several years from 1975 onwards Teresa had her own TV variety show in Hong Kong, on which she performed both solo and with several of her siblings. She released many successful albums in Hong Kong from 1976 onwards; her early releases on EMI, six of them going gold, mostly featured cover versions in English of western hits, including an album with George Lam. Her recordings, live shows and numerous television appearances made her arguably Hong Kong's most popular female star of the late 1970s.

Teresa's popularity also spread to other Asian markets including Japan, where she was the first Hong Kong singer and the youngest singer ever to appear on national TV. She has performed in many other countries as far apart as Singapore, Malaysia, Tahiti, Brunei, the USA and Canada.

With the growing popularity of Cantopop, Teresa started to record in Cantonese as well as English, remaining popular despite increasing competition from newer stars, notably Anita Mui. Teresa broadened her career into acting with appearances in a number of films, and auditioned for the lead role in Miss Saigon. Though this eventually went to Lea Salonga, Teresa took the lead role in the 1979 San Jose (California) production of the stage musical City of Broken Promises, a story set in Macau which won "Best Original Musical" for 1975. Another starring stage role was in 68 performances of I Have A Date With Spring in Hong Kong in 2001.

On an entirely different note, Teresa appeared on the cover of the December 1986 issue of the Hong Kong edition of Playboy magazine, which featured a tasteful topless pictorial of her.

Following her second marriage, Teresa moved to Canada and focused her attention on bringing up her family (she has three daughters; the eldest, TV Carpio, by her first marriage, is also a singer and songwriter). However Teresa remains popular and still makes occasional concert appearances, including a well-received series of performances with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra in 2003 that became a Hong Kong bestseller on CD and DVD.

Teresa teaches singing to children, and has also taught younger stars including Sandy Lam, Sammi Cheng and Gigi Leung. Gigi and other popular local singers including Jacky Cheung and George Lam have appeared as guest performers in some of her recent concerts.