Composer who wrote hits for pop stars and China’s first astronaut dies in Hong Kong
Yu Lun composed scores for over 100 films and Teresa Teng’s Canto-pop debut, which became an enduring classic
Composer Yu Lun, whose songs were performed by a league of legends from late pop star Teresa Teng to China’s first astronaut, Yang Liwei, has died aged 92.
Yu, a versatile film music writer from love stories to Cantonese opera since 1953, passed away in Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Yau Ma Tei, on Thursday. He is survived by a son and daughter Dennie Wong, a composer, and two granddaughters.
Born Wong Yuk-lun in Nanjing in 1925, Yu relocated to Guangdong during China’s war with Japan in the 1930s and studied music under Professor Hwang Yau-tai at the Guangdong Arts School, where he graduated.
From 1953 to 1973, Yu composed and conducted musical scores for more than a hundred films, both in Cantonese and Putonghua, including the Cantonese opera film The Tragedy of Poet-Emperor Li Yu starring the legendary Yam Kim-fai and Pak Suet-sin.
But it was the song A River Apart in the 1966 movie that became Yu’s most beloved hit as it marked the Canto-pop debut of Teresa Teng in 1980.