The Coast's musical community was saddened by the sudden death of musician and teacher Lyle Carter on Feb. 18 after a brief battle with cancer. He had recently turned 66.
Carter attended music school after high school in Los Angeles, and he toured the U.S. and Canada with a band called the Royal Clefs. He also broadcast a jazz show on the radio. Since retiring to the Coast from Vancouver in 1999, Carter was an active contributor to the music scene as performer (clarinet, saxophone) and conductor, currently of the SunCoast Concert Band and previously of the Creek Big Band. He led the Concert Band, and he put in many hours of volunteer work with the group that forms part of the Sunshine Coast Community Orchestra. Carter also had a role in the Coast's Festival of the Performing Arts as chair of percussion, woodwinds and brass. Carter was active each year in organizing the musical gala of the Heritage Playhouse's Showcase event (SOPA). He wrote some of his own compositions to be performed by wind quintet at the last SOPA opening. Audiences may also remember him from his role in Lark in the Park when he led his junior contingent in the annual fundraising entertainment or as the musical director for the production of Oliver in 2002. He was also a director of the Gibsons Heritage Society and an ElderCollege lecturer.
Val Anderson, fellow musician and percussionist with the Concert Band and orchestra, remembers Carter as having a wonderful sense of humour.
"He had a dry, quick humour. He made me laugh," she said.
He was a private person, choosing to live alone with his dog who is now in Anderson's care. She remembers his ElderCollege history of jazz course with awe. "He could talk for two hours about jazz and he didn't have a piece of paper in front of him. His knowledge was encyclopaedic."
A memorial event will be held for Carter on Sunday, March 5, at The Club in Lower Gibsons at 3 p.m. Several bands, the Concert Band and the Creek Big Band, along with other vocalists, are expected to perform a musical tribute.
