Brian Asawa (October 1, 1966 – April 18, 2016) was a Japanese American opera singer who sang as a countertenor. About Asawa, Opera News stated: "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