This Winnipeg percussionist was a backstage power through his Lombard Avenue-based company Music Services International,Canada's largest music contracting company, which hired musicians for the biggest touring music productions on the road. Lutfiyya and Richard Hurst, who left the Winnipeg last May for Victoria, started the successful business on the kitchen table of the former's home in 1989. It grew to be one of the largest in North America.

Earlier in the fall of 2009, he was in Atlanta for the opening of the Broadway-bound Come Fly Away. His firm hired all the players for scores for big name musicals including Showboat, Cats, Mamma Mia!, Jersey Boys and numerous concerts. He was also working on the upcoming Manitoba Theatre Centre production of The Drowsy Chaperone, as well as music for the Vancouver Olympics.

Born in Bangor, Maine, Lutfiyya was 11 when his father agreed to teach sociology at the University of Manitoba. Much of his early musical training occurred at Richmond Collegiate. He subsequently enrolled in music education at U of M. He graduated in 1981, and sat in the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra and other musical groups before forming MSI. Lutfiyya was all about the work and not the glory. He is survived by two sisters and a brother.

Source: Winnipeg Free Press