Dead Celebrity Alert

Hiroyuki Iwaki, the Japanese conductor who led the Melbourne Symphony for more than three decades and wielded the baton from a wheelchair as his health declined, died Tuesday at a Tokyo hospital. He was 73.

Iwaki, who also conducted the NHK Symphony and major orchestras in Europe and the United States, died of heart failure at the hospital where he had been treated for an unspecified illness since late May, said Yuko Isaka of Iwaki’s office, May Corp.

Iwaki maintained a passion for work despite nearly 30 surgical operations he received over years on his illnesses, including lung cancer and pharynx cancer, the national Asahi newspaper said.

Just a month before his final hospitalization, he conducted — from a wheelchair — an anniversary concert for the Tokyo Philharmonic Chorus. … Read full obituary

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