- He made successful concert tours as a conductor of his own works.
- His son Willi Kollo was also a composer of light music and his grandson is the celebrated Wagnerian tenor René Kollo.
- Kollo was born in Neidenburg, East Prussia. His best known work, the operetta Wie einst im Mai (1913), was the basis of a 1917 Sigmund Romberg operetta in America entitled Maytime.
- Kollo also emerged as a composer of revues and sound films in 1915, was one of the founders of the performer's rights organization GEMA, and had his own music publishing company.
- He was a German composer of operettas, Possen mit Gesang ( a form of popular German-language music drama, that developed in the late 18th and early 19th centuries), and Singspiele ( a genre of opera), as well as popular songs.
- He was also a conductor and a music publisher.
- Somewhat prolifically, he continued composing musical comedies, farces and operettas, notably, with among other pieces, Wie einst im Mai (1913; Es war in Schöneberg, im Monat Mai; Die Männer sind alle Verbrecher), Der Juxbaron (1916), Drei alte Schachteln (1917) and Die Frau ohne Kuß (1924).
- With Jean Gilbert and Paul Lincke, Kollo was a founder of the Berliner Operette.
- A merchant's son, he was originally supposed to take his father's trade, but was able to devote himself to the study of music in the Königsberg Sondershausen music conservatory with his mother's help.
- It was in 1910 with Willy Bredschneider that he composed his first great success, Posse Große Rosinen, produced on New Year's Eve 1911.
- He became a theater conductor for a brief time in Königsberg before going to Berlin in 1899. In Berlin, he turned towards popular / light music, and from 1908, wrote music for the popular musical theater.
- Kolo's grandson René Kollo has recorded a CD of songs and arias by Walter Kollo entitled 'Auf den Spuren meiner Väter: René Kollo sings Kollo', 2009, CD EMI).
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