Brian Asawa

Brian Asawa (October 1, 1966 – April 18, 2016) was an American countertenor. ''Opera News'' said that "in his prime, Asawa was an electric performer, his fearless performing style supported by a voice of arresting beauty and expressivity."

Early life

Brian Asawa was born in Fullerton, California, and grew up in Los Angeles. He sang in the choir at a Methodist church with a Japanese congregation. He began his studies as a piano major at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and then changed his studies to voice, studying under tenor Harlan Hokin. After two semesters there he transferred to UCLA.

In 1989, he began a master's degree in early-music interpretation at the University of Southern California where he was a pupil of the American lutenist James Tyler. However, Asawa never finished this program as his performance career began to take off.

Career

His career was launched in 1991 when he became the first countertenor to win both the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions and an Adler Fellowship to the San Francisco Opera's Merola Opera Program. Of his performance at the Metropolitan Allan Kozinn wrote:

Asawa made his professional opera debut at the San Francisco Opera in 1991 in Hans Werner Henze's ''Das verratene Meer'' where he also sang the Shepherd in ''Tosca'' and Oberon in Benjamin Britten's ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' in 1992. While at the SFO he continued voice studies with Jane Randolph. He also made his first opera appearance in New York City in 1992 at the Mozart Bicentennial celebration at Lincoln Center, singing the title role in Mozart's ''Ascanio in Alba'' with the Mostly Mozart Festival Chorus and the New York Chamber Symphony under conductor Ádám Fischer.

In 1993, Asawa was awarded a career grant from the Richard Tucker Music Foundation and made his debut at the Santa Fe Opera as Arsamene in Handel's '' Xerxes''. In ''The New York Times'' in January 1994 Alex Ross wrote:

Later that year, Asawa became the first countertenor to win the Operalia International Opera Competition, and made debuts at the Metropolitan Opera as the Voice of Apollo in Benjamin Britten's ''Death in Venice'' and at Glimmerglass Opera as Ottone in Claudio Monteverdi's ''L'incoronazione di Poppea''. He was chosen Seattle Opera's Artist of the Year for the 1996–97 season.

Other career highlights included Orlofsky in ''Die Fledermaus'' at San Francisco Opera and San Diego Opera; Tolomeo in ''Giulio Cesare'' at Metropolitan Opera, Bordeaux, Opera Australia, Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, Paris Opera, Gran Teatre del Liceu in Barcelona, and Hamburg State Opera; Arsamene in ''Serse'' at Los Angeles, Cologne, Seattle, and Geneva; the title role in '' Admeto'' at Sydney, Montpellier and Halle; Baba The Turk in ''The Rake's Progress'' at San Francisco and for Swedish television; Fyodor in ''Boris Godunov'' at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, Endimione in La Calisto in Brussels, Oberon in ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' at San Francisco, Houston, London Symphony Orchestra and Lyon; Ascanio in ''Ascanio in Alba'' at Lincoln Center; Farnace in ''Mitridate, re di Ponto'' at Opera National de Lyon and Paris Opera; Nero in ''L'incoronazione di Poppea'' in Sydney; Orfeo in ''Orfeo ed Euridice'', La Speranza in ''L'Orfeo'' and L'Umana Fragilita/Anfinomo in ''Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria'' at Netherlands Opera; David in Handel's ''Saul'' and Belize in the opera ''Angels in America'' by Péter Eötvös at the Bavarian State Opera, and Sesto in ''Giulio Cesare'' at COC in Toronto.

Asawa not only performed in opera, but was interested in expanding the art song literature for countertenor, supporting living composers by commissioning, performing, and recording works by them. Perhaps best known is the song cycle "Encountertenor", commissioned from Jake Heggie and premiered at London's Wigmore Hall in 1995 (later recording it for the RCA Red Seal at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival in celebration of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death.

In May 2014, Asawa performed a recital program with mezzo-soprano Diana Tash at the Festival de Mayo in Guadalajara, Mexico. In 2014, Asawa and Peter Somogyi established Asawa and Associates, an operatic artists' management agency.

Personal life and death

Asawa was openly gay and believed this had helped him discover his voice type. "Heterosexual men don't feel comfortable singing in a treble register because it's not butch", he told an interviewer in 1998. "Gay men feel quite comfortable singing in their falsetto registers." He was married to Keith Fisher; the marriage ended in divorce.

Asawa was the nephew of sculptor Ruth Asawa. His cause of death was reported as heart and liver failure. He died in Mission Hills on April 18, 2016, at the age of 49.

Recordings

Asawa's discography includes solo recital discs for RCA Victor Red Seal ranging from Dowland and Edmund Campion to Rachmaninoff and Ned Rorem. His opera recordings include Farnace in ''Mitridate'' for Decca, Arsamene in ''Serse'' for Conifer and Oberon in ''A Midsummer Night's Dream'' for Philips with the London Symphony Orchestra under Sir Colin Davis.

Asawa appeared on DVD in Ligeti's "Le Grand Macabre" Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona, Monteverdi's "Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria" Opus Arte, Mussorgsky's "Boris Godunov" Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona, and Stravinsky's "The Rake's Progress" Kultur, as well as both a CD and DVD release of Handel's "Messiah" directed by Marc Minkowski. In 2014, Asawa and mezzo-soprano Diana Tash released an album of duets on the LML Music label that included works by Handel, Monteverdi, Purcell, A. Scarlatti and Marco da Gagliano.

Discography

*''The Dark Is My Delight and other 16th Century Lute Songs'', RCA Red Seal, 1997
*''The Faces of Love - The Songs of Jake Heggie'', RCA, 1999

https://www.discogs.com/artist/2561992-Brian-Asawa

Notes

Sources

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Asawa, Brian
1966 births
2016 deaths
20th-century American male opera singers
Operatic countertenors
Operalia, The World Opera Competition prize-winners
Winners of the Metropolitan Opera National Council Auditions
American classical musicians of Japanese descent
American gay musicians
American LGBTQ singers
Gay singers
LGBTQ people from California
American LGBTQ people of Asian descent
University of California, Los Angeles alumni
USC Thornton School of Music alumni
Singers from Los Angeles
21st-century American male opera singers
Classical musicians from California
20th-century American LGBTQ people
21st-century American LGBTQ people