Teresa Carpio is a Hong Kong English pop and Cantopop singer, actress, and singing teacher. Carpio was popular in Hong Kong during the 1970s and 1980s. She is also the mother of actress and singer T.V. Carpio. She is most well known for her Cantonese hits, 假如, 仍然記得嗰一次, 眉頭不再皺, 何必放棄 and 真愛.
Family background
Carpio's father is Filipino and her mother Shanghainese. Born into a musical family, She began singing at age 6 when she entered and won Hong Kong's first Amateur Talent Quest. She is the eldest of five, all of whom have at some time been active in the music business. Her eldest daughter, TV Carpio, is a musician, actress and Broadway singer.
Career
Carpio began her career as a child star, winning Hong Kong's first Amateur Talent Quest in 1963 at the age of 6. At age 11, she turned down a scholarship at St Paul's Convent to work in her first job in Tahiti where her father was also working. Following that, she worked in clubs until she went to Japan for a year where she met Shintaro Katsu who sponsored her during her time there. She released her first single in Japan in 1971, entitled Ainoko Mary. Returning to Hong Kong, she worked in many nightclubs, such as Danshaku, Gessekai and the Hyatt Hotel's Chin Chin Bar, until EMI came and offered her a recording deal. 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 albums in Hong Kong from 1976 onwards; six of her albums under EMI went gold, in which she featured cover versions in English of western hits, including an album with George Lam. She made numerous television appearances in Hong Kong, in the late 1970s. Carpio was the first and the youngest Hong Kong singer ever to appear on national TV in Japan. She has performed in many other countries as far apart as Singapore, Malaysia, Tahiti, Australia, Japan, Thailand, Brunei, the United States and Canada. With the growing popularity of Cantopop, Carpio started to record in Cantonese along with English. In 1983 Carpio headlined the Hong Kong Coliseumfor the first time, unfortunately, it was unsuccessful at the box office. Reception towards the concert was generally mixed, although, Carpio’s voice and stage presence was praised, the lack of cantonese songs and audience interaction was criticised. According to Carpio, the concert caused her a lot of debt, partially leading to the dissolution of her first marriage. She 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. She was no stranger to livemusical theatre, having taken the lead role in the 1979 San Jose, California production of the stage musicalCity ofBroken Promises, based on the book by Austin Coates, a story set in Macau which won Best Original Musical. Following her second marriage, Carpio moved to Canada and focused her attention on bringing up her family.
Discography
Carpio has released 25 albums to date, including 6 live recordings. Her first album, Teresa Carpio, was released in 1975 and then quickly followed up with five more solo albums from EMI as well as a duets album with George Lam. In 1981 she moved to WEA and released one Cantonese album. In 1983 she formed her own record company, TV Records, which released three more Cantonese albums, on which – together with her WEA album – are some of her most popular songs. Since then she has released several live CDs and DVDs as well as a few studio recordings.
English
Cantonese
Duet
Live
Filmography
She has appeared in 13 movies in total, starting in 1984 with a lead role in 開心鬼, where she also sang the theme song. She is more well known for her later movies where she often was famous for small roles that became extremely popular, such as 2003's 六樓后座 where she sang part of 海闊天空, accompanying herself on keyboards.
Motion Pictures
Teaching
Carpio began teaching in 1991, when Sandy Lam came to her and asked her to teach her in preparation for her concerts at the Hong Kong Coliseum. After that, many other singers followed, names such as Sammi Cheng, Wong Cho Lam, Cecilia Cheung, Joey Yung, Gigi Leung, Alex To, Edmund Leung, Twins, Jade Kwan and many more. She appeared on Hong Kong television as a judge and head vocal coach on season two of the singing competition The Voice.
Major Concerts
''Singer 2017''
Prior to her appearance on Singer 2017, on 20 August 2016, she appeared as a guest singer on the finals of :zh:跨界歌王|Crossover Singer 2016 for the performance of runner-up Wong Cho Lam As a result of her appearance, Carpio was selected as one of eight initial singers to compete in Hunan TV's Singer 2017. During her tenure, she told to the media that her participation was fueled by the fact that she was competing against another Hong Kong singer, Sandy Lam Yik-Lin. Despite topping the singer's voting predictions, she was eliminated on week five after receiving the lowest combined votes, largely due to finishing last on her prior week. Her elimination was not without controversy, with many fans questioning about the elimination. After her Return performance on the week after elimination, Carpio later returned to the stage to participate the "Breakout Round", and at second place by a difference of three votes behind the top singerLi Jian, she was one of the few singers to be reinstated from the competition. However, she was shortly eliminated again on the semi-finals a week later as one of the bottom two singers receiving a lower count of votes.
