Noel Quinlan was born in Sydney Australia. A professional guitarist from the age of 15, he rose to the top of his craft as studio session musician and regularly performed on TV programs such as “The Mavis Bramston Show” and “The Tonight Show”. He signed with CBS Records as Artist/Producer/Songwriter, and worked the pub/club circuit with the Bee Gees, Rowan and Martin, Barry Humphries, Sean and Sonia, Peter Allen, Dionne Warwick, and many other Australian artistes.
In the late 60’s he left Australia to perform at the Hong Kong Hilton Den with “The In People”. He later formed his own band, QUINLAN COLLECTION and after stints in Tokyo, Bangkok and Hong Kong’s Godown Nightclub he returned to the Hong Kong Hilton as MD for six years.
Forming Hong Kong’s first jingle house he composed and produced thousands of music tracks for advertising, feature films and records. He created Asia’s first multi-track recording studio, THE PRODUCTION HOUSE, which evolved into HOUSE RECORDS.
Among the many jingles he has composed are tracks for Lap Sap Chung/Clean Hong Kong, Coca Cola, Marlboro, Virginia Slims, Cathay Pacific, Citibank, Thai International, Schweppes, Levi’s, 7-Up, United Airlines, Martel, Courvoisier, Towngas, as well as a virtual “who’s who” of international advertisers.
Noel participated in the career development of popular Chinese recording artists Paula Tsui, Teresa Tang, Alex Tong, Roman Tam, Sandra Lang, Susanna Kwan, Frances Yip, Tony Orchez, Danny Summer and Teresa Carpio. He signed local groups JADE and WILLY & THE CITY BAND, who each sold over 500,000 copies of Noel’s songs “MY GENERATION” (Levis) and “YANG GUANG KONG QI” (The Towngas Song).
In the 80’s he spent two years furthering his film career in Los Angeles, completing three more film scores with Ringo Lam and attending the Grove School of Music, where he studied composition and orchestration with Henry Mancini, Nelson Riddle and Dick Grove.
Returning to Hong Kong, he designed and built The Sound Department (HK) Ltd., a digital recording facility, which would compete successfully with the world’s best. These facilities led to production for major Chinese stars Anita Mui and Jacky Chan. INXS and Michael Hutchence chose Noel’s studio to work on their platinum-selling album, KICK.
Noel has composed scores for over 40 films and documentaries, including the groundbreaking Australian feature, “Man From Hong Kong”. He has created orchestral works for the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, HK Chamber Orchestra, Cologne Radio Orchestra et al, and for concert artists such as Tim Rice and Elaine Page. He has acted as Musical Director for many live media events
February 1991 saw the release of his concept album, “Middle Kingdom”, combining ancient Chinese folk tunes with new music performed on computers and traditional instruments. This landmark CD was the first of a continuing series with sales over 1,000,000.
Noel wrote and produced the large-scale dance spectacular “Tales From The Middle Kingdom”, featuring Willy Tsao’s City Contemporary Dance Company and the Guangdong Modern Dance Company. It was sponsored by the Shun Hing Group.
In 1994 he formed Big Sky Records to create and distribute his unique brand of World Music, with particular interest in developing contact between Western and Chinese/Asian performers.
The unique style of the “Middle Kingdom” production has greatly influenced modern Chinese record production, and is used extensively in films and television. For over 20 years Noel has written and produced the music for Martin Yan’s global TV show “Yan Can Cook”.
Recently he has scored the Hong Kong film “Beach Spike”, station logos for Phoenix Satellite TV, and the title song for the animated feature “Little Gobie”.
In 2015 Noel wrote and produced the musical “Little Sweetie”, again with the support of the Shun Hing Group.
He is located both in Hong Kong and Sydney, still writing and producing with new musical theatre in the pipeline, and having the time of his life.