Leon Ko Sai-tseung (Chinese: 高世章; pinyin: Gāo Shìzhāng) is a composer for musical theatre and films. He won a Richard Rodgers Development Award, a Golden Horse Award and numerous musical awards. His mother, Lucilla You Min (尤敏), was a famous actress in post-war Hong Kong Mandarin cinema and won "Best Actress" at the 1st Annual Golden Horse Awards and two consecutive Asian Film Festivals. His grandfather, Bak Yuk Tong (白玉堂), was a famous Cantonese opera artist, known as one of the Four Super Stars (四大天王).
He was the musical director of Hong Kong pop legend Jacky Cheung’s 2004 musical revival world tour of Snow.Wolf.Lake (雪狼湖). He worked with Jacky again on The Year of Jacky Cheung World Tour 07, penning a 30-minute musical for the concert. In 2009, he wrote an opening number and a mini-musical finale for Liza Wang's musical Liza the Diva (真係阿姐─汪明荃).
the stage musicals Sing High (我要高8度) for Macao Cultural Centre’s 15th Anniversary celebrations, Angel Falls (夢傳說) for Hong Kong Dance and I Am What I Am (雄師少年）for Guangzhou Opera House;
the stage plays Tonnochy (杜老誌) for Emperor Entertainment and Cross-mopolitan (咖喱盆菜釀薯條) for Chung Ying Theatre;
the transcultural music theatre The Liaisons (情話紫釵) for the 2010 Hong Kong Arts Festival and Hong Kong's participation in Expo 2010 Shanghai; and
In 2011, his first London musical Takeaway (also the first major British Chinese musical) premiered at Theatre Royal Stratford East.[5]
Ko has also performed in public himself. In 2009, he orchestrated and performed a medley of five songs[6] from some of his own musicals/plays at the 2009 Hong Kong Drama Awards in celebration of the 25th Anniversary of the Hong Kong Federation of Drama Societies. Later that year, he orchestrated and performed a medley of two songs[7] (one of which was tailor-made for the poem Looking up at the Starry Sky (仰望星空) written by the PRC Premier Wen Jiabao) at the Cultural Show in Celebration of the 60th Anniversary of the Founding of the People's Republic of China (香港同胞慶祝中華人民共和國成立六十週年文藝晚會) together with Jacky Cheung, Yao Jue and Yang Peiyi. Since 2010, he has co-hosted The Shaw Prize Award Presentation Ceremony with Dodo Cheng.[8] In 2018, he staged a concert titled "The Amazing Filmphony" with the Hong Kong Sinfonietta. The concert consisted of his film scores and songs, of which he sang three of them on stage.[9]
Aside from music, Ko held an antique perfume bottle exhibition entitled Time in a Bottle (尋香記) at IFC Mall in 2010. To give the exhibition a theatrical context, he divided it into 13 "scenes" using his collection of perfume bottles to tell the story of a search for true love.[10] In 2024, he curated another edition of the theatrical exhibition entitled Time in a Bottle (琉璃之歌), held in The Box at Freespace in the West Kowloon Cultural District and Ishikawa Ongakudo in Kanazawa, Japan. This exhibition intertwines theatre, music, visual art, and scent to narrate the story of human existence, exploring themes of creation, prosperity, war, revival, and death through 12 theatrical scenes.
