Brian Asawa, first in a wave of countertenors, dead

Mr. Asawa was born in Los Angeles but began his operatic career in San Francisco in 1991 as the first countertenor to be accepted into San Francisco Opera’s Merola Opera Program. [...] his inclusion in the Merola Program and later his position as a an Adler Fellow put him at the front of a “new wave of countertenors returning to opera companies nationwide,” David Gockley, the general director of the San Francisco Opera, said in a statement. Christine Bullin, now the director of the men’s vocal ensemble Chanticleer, was working as the director of the San Francisco Opera Center in 1991. Mr. Asawa found a particular sweet spot in Baroque opera, specifically with those composed by George Frederic Handel. In a 1996 profile of Mr. Asawa, The San Francisco Chronicle’s music critic, Joshua Kosman, said he could use his voice with “a degree of precision and artistic finesse that most singers could only envy.” [...] he ran an opera management company that represents singers and stage directors. Peter Somogyi, a partner in that management company, met Mr. Asawa 21 years ago while he was performing in a Los Angeles Opera production of “Xerxes.” Diana Tash, a close and long time friend of Mr. Asawa’s, put out a compilation of Baroque recordings with him called “Spirits of the Air” in 2014. “We just discovered we had a really, really unique blend of our voices,” says Tash, a mezzo-soprano.