Composer, artist and tennis coach Cordell Ho is a Bay Area native, creating theater-inspired mixed-media films and experimental music, exploring mindfulness and expression, culture and the fusion of sound and visuals.
Born and raised in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Ho is a 4th generation Chinese-American, now living in Kensington. Initially pursuing medicine, he fell in love with art while taking high school and college electives.
“If you want to be a dentist, you have to be good with your hands and appreciate beautiful things,” says Ho. These qualities led him to try jewelry and sculpture.
From the University of Oregon, he transferred to the University of Vienna to pursue his passion for painting. Although piano had always been a part of Ho’s life, it was only when he discovered his passion for visual arts that he truly began to appreciate its beauty. So, he then went to UC Berkeley to study music composition and electronic sound generation.
Since then, Ho has not only composed and performed several operas, symphonic pieces and film scores—such as Celestial Search (Italy, 1992), Hui Jia (New York, 1982) and iPH (San Francisco, 2006)—but he’s also held coaching positions at UC Berkeley and prestigious tennis clubs across the country.
Travel, made possible especially through tennis, has been a major influence on Ho’s explorative style. Besides travel, being open-minded towards other cultures has been key—“That’s part of the experiment,” he explains. During his time as the associate head tennis coach for UC Berkeley, Ho traveled to Japan with his team, where he was introduced to Noh theater.
Unlike Western narrative drama, Noh theater combines music, movement and visuals to tell a story, with a slow pace and focus on subtle gestures. While Ho has extensive music training, the magic for him lies in blending his musical expertise with his passion for visual art, which drew him to Noh theater. He sees it as a universal and humanist art form and incorporated it into his recent films, iPh and Myth @ Work, where he both composed the music and created the visuals.
The deliberate pacing of Noh theater holds meaning for Ho, both in his art and in his approach to it. “It opens the door for you [the audience] to think—a lot of people don’t like that, by the way—but I think people just need space to be themselves,” he says. “That’s also kind of the role of an artist. We are just looking at the world as we see it, and we’re expressing that.”
Both of Ho’s films depict war and the pandemic, where slow-moving visuals and meandering sounds allow viewers to process such tragedies mindfully. Ho views his art not as a direct message, but as a reflection of his worldview, inviting individual interpretation.
The unique impact of Ho’s films is deeply tied to his expertise in electronic music and sound design. Regarding the score for his recent film, he explains, “If you had heard anything like that before, I would have failed at my job.” He enjoys using computers to craft new sounds that precisely capture his ideas, following the tradition of untraditional California composers known for designing their own instruments.
Currently, Ho is a board member at Berkeley Tennis Club, where he showcases his films. His love for Berkeley, coaching, the club and his family is as deep as his passion for art. “Having both tennis and art in my life is just one of those lucky things that seemed to fall into place,” he says. “I have a built-in audience of friends. And why not write music for people you kind of know? It’s unique in that way.
“Most places, people stick you in a box,” adds Ho. “Berkeley’s not like that.”
At his recent showcase, where he presented his film, iPH, Ho shared that much of the film was inspired by the accomplished women in his life—his adopted daughters, wife and tennis team—and his deep admiration and empathy for them. He may score a documentary next, continuing to blend visuals and sound, but mostly just enjoys going with the flow, without certainty of his next project. Though, he assures us he is always writing. It’s in his nature, and there’s always more to come from him.
Above all, Ho expresses endless gratitude for the community that supports and inspires him, both personally and creatively.
