Brian Asawa

Brian Asawa was a contemporary Japanese American countertenor known for his work in opera and early music. He was an exuberant and fearless performer with a distinctively dark and expressive voice. Asawa was born in Fullerton, California, in 1966 to a non-musical family. His father worked as a chemist, and his mother operated a beauty salon. He began his musical journey at young age with piano lessons, and he sang in his church choir. In the early '80s, he enrolled at the University of California, Santa Cruz, as a piano student, but he almost immediately changed his major to...