A bassist in the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra has died in a hiking accident. Georg Straka slipped and fell to his death while climbing Mount Fuji on a free day during the orchestra's current tour of Japan. He was 41.

Born in Mödling, south of Vienna, in 1969, Straka studied bass with Johannes Auersperg at the University of Graz. He played in the Salzburg Mozarteum orchestra and, from 1996, in the orchestra of the Vienna State Opera. He became a member of the Vienna Philharmonic in 1999.

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