Musician, music administrator.
Born at Bangor, Maine in 1956 to Abdullah and Billy Mae Lutfiyya, he was 11 when his father agreed to teach sociology at the University of Manitoba and the family moved to Winnipeg. He began playing the drums at a young age and much of his early musical training occurred at Fort Richmond Collegiate. While a student there, he put together a combo with his schoolmates, and also sometimes worked professionally as a percussionist.
He ran a summer day-camp for young musicians in the Fort Garry School Division, and then enrolled in music education at the University of Manitoba, playing at Rainbow Stage and with the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra while he studied. He also worked at St. John’s Music for several years, developing a local source of sheet music and instruments for school and community bands. Interested in music education, he authored a percussion methods text.
His main passion was musical theatre. In 1989, he and Richard Hurst formed Music Services International in Winnipeg, Canada’s largest music contracting company and one of the largest in North America, which hired musicians for the biggest touring music productions on the road. For almost 20 years, it was his business to contract musicians for various shows and events all over the world. He relished the opportunity to travel and work with people throughout North America, Europe, and Asia.
His firm hired all the players for scores of big-name musicals, including Showboat, Mamma Mia!, Cats, Jersey Boys, and numerous concerts. Just prior to his sudden death, he was in Atlanta, Georgia for the première of the Broadway-bound Come Fly With Me, Twyla Tharp’s Frank Sinatra-inspired dance piece, for which Lutfiyya provided music supervision. He was also working on the Manitoba Theatre Centre production of The Drowsy Chaperone, as well as music for the Vancouver Olympics. “His name was an assurance of musical quality at MTC,” said then-MTC artistic director Steven Schipper upon hearing of Lutfiyya’s passing. “Every patron who’s ever heard beautiful music at MTC knew Sam’s work … He’s irreplaceable.”
He died at Winnipeg on 23 November 2009.
“Backstage power player ‘irreplaceable’,” Winnipeg Free Press, 24 November 2009.
Obituary, Winnipeg Free Press, 25 November 2009.
This page was prepared by Lois Braun.
Page revised: 1 April 2025
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