-ABOUT HO LAN-


Singer/guitarist/composer Ho Lan grew up in Puli, Taiwan. The eighth of ten children, she received no formal musical training besides a few months of guitar lessons at the age of 16. In her youth, Ho Lan and her best friend Ying Hong used to crouch outside the window of one of the few homes in Puli that had a radio. There they would stay for hours, listening in wonder to music from all over the world. To strengthen her voice and increase her range, the young Ho Lan spent hours out in nature, singing against the sound of waterfalls and mimicking bird songs. At age 18, Ho Lan became the music teacher in a local elementary school.

Ho Lan's launch into stardom came when she answered an ad in the newspaper for a background guitarist at a television station. The audition lead to a subsequent televised audition on the Taiwanese talent show "Wu Ge Deng". As a result of this contest, Ho Lan became the first self-accompanied, whistling and yodeling songstress on Taiwanese television. In addition to weekly appearances on the Taiwanese variety show Chun Xing Hui, (Gathering of Stars), she sang with an eighteen-piece band at the Ambassador Hotel of Taipei. There she sang songs in French, English, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Tagalog, Polynesian, and her native languages Mandarin and Taiwanese for the visiting foreign diplomats.

Ho Lan and her signature sultry low voice charmed her audiences in Taiwan and abroad, with appearances in Singapore, and on Hong Kong and Japanese television. After performing at the 1974 World Exposition in Spokane, Washington, Ho Lan and her family immigrated to America where she sang throughout the Northwest, appearing on television in Vancouver and Victoria B. C.. She now resides in the United States.

-HO LAN TODAY-