SINGAPORE – Home-grown music conductor Adrian Tan died on Monday (July 12) night from cardiac arrest in his sleep. He was 44.
Tan, who became music director of the Singapore Wind Symphony and the Braddell Heights Symphony Orchestra in 2012, led wind bands and orchestras at both the community and professional levels.
He leaves behind his mother, whom he lived with.
His death came as a surprise to friends such as conductor Adrian Chiang, one of two friends with whom Tan co-founded the Conductors Collegium Asia earlier this year. It aims to provide professional training to aspiring conductors of ensembles in Singapore and Asia.
Their first training session was supposed to have been conducted over Zoom on the night that Tan died.
The class was meant to start at 7.30pm but Tan did not show up. «I thought he had fallen asleep and I still wanted to scold him for making everyone wait for him to start the Zoom,» says Chiang, 43, who had known Tan for more than 20 years.
