CoCo Lee (Ferren Lee)

Biography

CoCo Lee (Ferren Lee) was born on January 17, 1975 in Hong Kong, to an Indonesian-Chinese father and a mother from Wuhan, China. She spent her early childhood in Hong Kong before moving with her family to San Francisco, United States at age nine. She grew up in difficult living conditions, with the family living in a small room; after moving to America, circumstances improved when her mother remarried and obtained a Chinese medicine license. Lee studied in the U.S., where she served as volleyball team captain and student council president for four years, and won a beauty pageant at age sixteen. In 1993 she returned to Hong Kong and participated in a talent singing competition, placing second, then signed with a record company and released her first album in 1994. Lee is recognized as the first Chinese singer to perform at the Oscar ceremony, the first to release an English album globally, the first to sing the U.S. national anthem at an NBA game, and the first to hold a solo concert at Walt Disney Concert Hall. Her song "A Love Before Time" from the film "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Song, and the Chinese version "月光愛人" won a Hong Kong Film Award. In 2016 she participated in "I Am a Singer" and won the title, and in 2022 she served as a coach on "The Voice of China." She passed away on July 5, 2023 in Hong Kong at the age of 48.