Teresa Carpio

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Teresa Carpio
Chinese name	杜麗莎
Ancestry	Philippines, Hong Kong
Origin	Hong Kong
Born	1957 Hong Kong
Occupation	Singer, Actress
Genre(s)	Hong Kong English pop, Cantopop
Instrument(s)	Piano
Years active	1975 - present
Children	Rita Carpio, T.V. Carpio
Parents	Fernando Carpio

Teresa Carpio is a Hong Kong English pop and Cantopop singer, actress and singing teacher, 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. She is the mother of singer T. V. Carpio.

1 Family Background
2 Career
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Family Background

Carpio's father is Filipino and her mother Chinese. Born into a musical family (her grandfather was a concert violinist and jazz guitarist, her father Fernando, a noted jazz drummer, and several uncles were also professional musicians), Carpio began her career as a child star, winning Hong Kong's first Amateur Talent Quest in 1963 at the age of 6.

[edit] Career

For several years from 1975 onwards Carpio 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 under EMI such as the EMI's "Sound Hit" series on vinyl record. Eventually six of her album under EMI went gold, in which she 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.

Carpio'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, Carpio started to record in Cantonese along with English, remaining popular despite increasing competition from newer stars, notably Anita Mui. Carpio 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, based on the book by Austin Coates, 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, Carpio 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, Carpio moved to Canada and focused her attention on bringing up her family (she has three daughters; the eldest, T. V. Carpio, by her first marriage, is also an actress, singer and songwriter). However Carpio 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.

Carpio now teaches singing to children, and has established her own music schools in Canada and Hong Kong. She has also coached younger Hong Kong stars including Sandy Lam, Sammi Cheng and Gigi Leung. Gigi Leung and other popular local singers including Jacky Cheung and George Lam have appeared as guest performers in some of Carpio's concerts. She and Lam gave a series of joint concerts at the Hong Kong Coliseum in 2007.

Her daughter, T. V. Carpio recently appeared as Prudence in the Beatles themed musical, Across the Universe (film).