Leon Ko


Leon Ko Sai-tseung is a composer for musical theatre and films. He won a Richard Rodgers Development Award, a Golden Horse Award and numerous musical awards. In 2025, he received the Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Arts from the Hong Kong Arts Development Council.
Ko comes from a renowned family of performing artists. His mother, Lucilla You Min, 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, was a famous Cantonese opera artist, known as one of the Four Super Stars.

Personal life

Ko received a master’s in Musical Theatre Writing at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. His musical Heading East, with book and lyrics by Robert Lee, won the 2001 Richard Rodgers Development Award and was restaged in New York in 2010 in the form of a concert presentation. His works have been performed at Carnegie Hall, as well as on Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), where he wrote songs for the children series The Puzzle Place.

Career

Ko won ten Best Score awards for his Cantonese musicals The Good Person of Szechwan, The Legend of the White Snake, Field of Dreams, The Passage Beyond, Sing Out, The Woman in Kenzo and The Impossible Trial as well as his a cappella theatre piece Our Immortal Cantata in the 2003, 2006, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2017, 2018, 2022 and 2023 Hong Kong Drama Awards. For the movie Perhaps Love, he received a Golden Horse Award for Best Original Film Song, a CASH Golden Sail Music Award for Best Alternative Composition as well as a Hong Kong Film Award, an Asia-Pacific Film Festival Award and a Golden Bauhinia Award for Best Film Score. In 2013, he received a Hong Kong Film Award for Best Original Film Song for the movie The Last Tycoon. In 2019, he received an ASCAP Screen Music Award for the movie Monster Hunt 2. He was nominated for a Golden Horse Award and a Hong Kong Film Award in 2008 for the movie The Warlords.
He was the musical director of Hong Kong pop legend Jacky Cheung’s 2004 musical revival world tour of Snow.Wolf.Lake. 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.
He also took part in the revitalisation of Cantonese opera. In 2006, he wrote a new opening song and incidental music for Princess Changping presented by Yam Kim Fai & Pak Suet Sin Charitable Foundation and performed by Chor Fung Ming Troupe. In 2012, he wrote an opening number for Dream of the Red Chamber performed by Connie Chan and Jian Wen Duan. In 2014, he wrote incidental music for Reincarnation of the Red Plum Blossoms presented by Yam Pak Foundation. In 2017, he wrote a new opening song and incidental music for Shade of Butterfly and Red Pear Blossom presented by Yam Pak Foundation.
Other works include the scores to:
In 2011, his first London musical Takeaway premiered at Theatre Royal Stratford East.
Ko has also performed in public himself. In 2009, he orchestrated and performed a medley of five songs 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 at the Cultural Show in Celebration of the 60th Anniversary of the Founding of the People's Republic of China together with Jacky Cheung, Yao Jue and Yang Peiyi. From 2010 to 2024, he co-hosted The Shaw Prize Award Presentation Ceremony. 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.
Aside from music, Ko held an antique perfume bottle exhibition entitled Time in a Bottle 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. In 2024, he curated another edition of the theatrical exhibition entitled Time in a Bottle, 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.
Ko was a council member of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts from 2015 to 2021 and was a council member of Hong Kong Arts Development Council from 2011 to 2016.