Vic Lundie – Rest in Peace
By Margaret Sheard…..
While attending an event on Tuesday 1st September, we heard the sad news that Vic Lundie had passed away that morning. Our thoughts are with Prue who has had many months of anguish following Vic’s accident and resulting coma and she took him back to the UK, hopeful that he would recover but sadly he didn’t.
I didn’t really know Vic but had a lot of contact with Prue during my time with BRS a few years ago, and I am so sorry for her loss.
Heidi Trautmann interviewed Vic in 2010 and I am giving an extract from her article to give some background of Vic’s life. To read Heidi’s complete article click here
My curiosity grew with a jazz night initiated by Rauf Kasimov in Bellapais, a pianist of classical education and known for his involvement with teaching our budding young talents and I thought to myself that there must be some more. So I got in touch with Vic Lundie from Karaman who is known in the foreign community as an excellent trumpet player . Yes, he said, I know most of the jazz musicians here in Cyprus. So we met.
Vic Lundie and his wife Prue have lived in Karaman for 25 years, first coming for holidays, and now for good since he retired 15 years ago. Vic has travelled much and lived abroad in places where good music is played as a tradition, and not only jazz: He has lived in New Orleans, American Virgin Islands, Jamaica, Venezuela and Guyana and he has visited famous musical venues and heard renowned musicians. His passion for jazz goes back to school and university days where he taught himself to play the trumpet – later studied with Phil Parker in London – and since those young years, he has played with many musicians and music groups around the world. Just for fun and out of a passion for jazz.
Eight years ago he got his trumpet out again to play and practice regularly. This was followed by an activity held by the American Embassy which initiated a regular event in Nicosia, a bi-communal event, in which professional musicians were invited from New York every two to three months, to meet with Greek and Turkish Cypriot musicians and teach them in workshops with subsequent concerts. These take place at the Fullbright Building, but they also have music evenings and jam sessions at various places south and north of the Green Line, for example the Narnia Club in Nicosia and the Old Grape Vine and Effendi House in Kyrenia. The members of the Bi-communal Jazz Band also meet and play together outside their workshops, and his friends Ersen Sururi and Zelis, both Turkish Cypriots whom Vic Lundie respects highly, and Greek Cypriot Charis Iannou, take over the teaching when the American musicians return home; others of the same group are Ahmed Elmas and Cagit Kutrafali.
Vic Lundie has also played with Rauf Kasimov, piano, and his new musician friend Mustafa Özak, double bass, who have a lot of experience in jazz. Other groups and musicians come and go……
Our sincere condolences go to Prue and her family at this sad time.
Photos are courtesy of Heidi Trautmann and Fikri Toros.
