Fred Cheng

Fred Cheng
Fred Cheng in May 2014
Background information
Chinese name	鄭俊弘 (traditional)
Pinyin	Zhèng Jùnhóng (Mandarin)
Jyutping	Zeng4 Zeon3 Wang4 (Cantonese)
Born	Frederick Cheng (1983-11-10) 10 November 1983 Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada
Other names	fred, freddie, freddy, panda baby, panda fred
Origin	Hong Kong
Occupation	Actor, singer
Years active	2001–present
Genre(s)	Cantopop
Instrument(s)	Vocals, guitar, electric bass, piano
Label(s)	Voice Entertainment
Associated acts	HOME

Frederick "Fred" Cheng (Chinese: 鄭俊弘; born 10 November 1983) is a Canadian-born Hong Kong actor and singer. He rose to fame after competing and winning the 2013 Hong Kong singing competition, Voice Of The Stars.^[1] He is currently signed as an actor to TVB management and a singer under Voice Entertainment.

Early life and career beginnings

Cheng was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He lived with his mother, older sister, and younger brother. From his uncle's influence, at an early age he developed a love and interest for music, singing, and playing the guitar. Since the age of six, he has also been learning Choy Li Fut and picked up martial arts and boxing in high school. Upon graduating from Eric Hamber Secondary School, he returned to Hong Kong for the summer.

In 2001, Cheng's mother persuaded him to compete in the TVB New Talent Singing Awards,^[2] in which he won second place. Cheng was offered a contract to the record company Capital Artists, but after two months of training, the company stopped producing music, abruptly ending his singing career.

Acting career and return to singing

In 2003, TVB offered Cheng an artist contract and offered him a major role in the TVB drama Shine On You .He has starred in numerous Hong Kong series including Shine On You, Love Bond, The Charm Beneath, and Forensic Heroes.

In 2011, Fred signed a management contract with TVB.

In July 2013, Fred was encouraged by friends and family to compete in the inaugural season for the singing competition, The Voice of the Stars. Fred appeared on the first episode, performing Eason Chan's "Song of the Era" (時代曲). Fred earned 174.9 points, delivering the highest performance points on the show. On the second episode, Fred performed "Angels" by Robbie Williams and earned an even higher 179.9 points. The Voice of the Stars judge, Eric Moo, took Fred in as his student and offered him to appear on his Hong Kong concert as a guest performer. Throughout the season, Fred consistently stayed in the top two places.

Fred went on win the competition, winning 68% of the votes. Immediately after winning, Fred was announced that he would be singing the theme song with Kristal Tin for the upcoming Hong Kong drama, Return of the Silver Tongue.

On November 15, 2013, he signed with TVB's newly established record company Voice Entertainment and released his debut solo album in the summer of 2014.^[3] He released his first single, "Nobody", on March 24, 2014 and within 5 hours it became the top selling single on Hong Kong iTunes and held the record for seven days. Subsequently, he was given a chance to sing another two theme songs for TVB Drama, The Ultimate Addiction and Ghost Dragon of Cold Mountain. He also won many best new artist awards in 2014.

In March 2017, he acted as second male lead along with experienced and well-known actor, Gallen Lo in TVB drama 'Provocateur'.

After winning Voice Of The Stars (VOS)

After winning the VOS, Fred has been given more job opportunities by TVB in acting, singing and commercial advertisements. Due to his sudden rise in popularity, Fred has a group of fans ranging from age 5 to 80. Fred also has fans in Macau, Singapore, Malaysia, Canada and USA. Many big companies such as Towngas, Hopewell Holdings, New World Development, Shanghai Commercial Bank, AIA Group Limited, Swatch Group, Grand Lisboa, P&G and many more invited him to perform in their companies’ events.

Besides that, Fred has taken part in the filming of a number of commercial advertisements of companies such as Wellcome, P&G and Magic Smile B1. His first commercial is Wellcome where he filmed with Wu Fung, Yao Bin, Corinna Chamberlain and Hoffman Cheng which aired on 5 January 2014. Subsequently, Fred was selected by P&G to work with Jin Au-Yeung (MC Jin) in the P&G advertisement which was aired 19 March 2014. Both commercial advertisements received good responses from the public. As a result, Fred was chosen to partner with Sisley Choi to appear in a new series of commercial with veteran TVB artistes such as Wu Fung and Law Lan in a new commercial for Wellcome. In the commercial Fred and Sisley Choi portray the younger versions of Wu Fung and Law Lan, an elderly couple.

On September 15, 2014 Cheng released his first album "Story of Panda". It reached number one on multiple sales charts within one week. On November 1, 2014 he held his first concert 'Welcome To My Dreams' at the Kowloonbay International Trade & Exhibition Centre. On September 5, 2015, he held his second concert 'The Red Concert'. He held his first international concert in his hometown, Vancouver on March 12, 2018 and second in New York on March 18, 2018. He has mentioned in many interviews that his ambition is to have a world tour concert.

He is also currently studying an online music degree at Berklee College Of Music.

Achievements in The Voice of the Stars (VOS)

Drama songs

Songs with other artists

• 2013 TVB 46th Anniversary Celebration Theme Song - "Always Getting Better"
• 2014 FIFA World Cup Theme Song - "We Are the Only One" (Various Artists Chorus)
• 2014 TVB J2 Channel Song - "Vibrant Heart"

Awards

Filmography

References

External links

1. Fred Cheng’s Weibo