Music producer killed in tipper truck collision had recently recovered from surgery after racetrack crash

 
Music producer: Akis Kollaros (centre bottom) with band members from Monument
Anna Dubuis4 February 2015

A music producer knocked down and killed in London was a cycling enthusiast who had recently recovered from surgery following a crash at a racetrack.

Akis Kollaros, 34, who lived in Dalston, east London, died on Monday afternoon when he was in collision with a tipper truck turning left in Homerton High Street in east London.

A graduate of the London College of Music, Mr Kollaros set up his own studio and produced albums by groups at the forefront of the UK’s new heavy metal scene.

He also worked as a sound engineer for live bands playing at clubs around the capital including The Nest nightclub in Dalston and the Old Queen’s Head in Islington.

He took up cycling around three years ago after moving to London from Athens, and began competing in races with amateur club London Dynamo.

Tragic death: Akis Kollaros with friend Jo Lord

Close friend Jo Lord, a fellow LCM graduate who first met Mr Kollaros when she was training to be a sound engineer, said: “He was running one of the rooms at the studio and I was sitting in on work experience. We hit it off straight away and he taught me everything I needed to know.

“He loved music, he loved metal and that love fed into his work.” Mr Kollaros needed surgery after shattering both elbows and his jaw during a race in Gravesend in October which left him unable to eat solid food for more than a month.

Miss Lord said: “He came flying down a straight onto a turn and someone clipped his wheel. He’d started cycling as a hobby to get fit, and I asked at the time if it was healthy to do something that could be so damaging.

“He said ‘why live your life half-heartedly, you only live once and you should make the most of it’. That was him all over. He was a lovely, caring and totally unique guy.”

Kaine, a band whose album he had just completed recording, described Mr Kollaros as: “not only extremely talented and committed as a producer [but] an all-round great guy.”

They said: “He worked well with us in the band and he became a great friend of ours, was involved in a number of in and practical jokes and had a great sense of humour and temperment.”

Paul Bishop from The Columbo Group, which owns clubs and venues at which Mr Kollaros worked, said: “He was an incredible man, immensely talented, unfailingly kind and generous and will be desperately missed by all who had the honour of knowing him.”

In a statement, a member of the London Dynamo cycling team said: “The death on the road of a fellow London Dynamo, and this maybe the first in such a way, is a hard, hard pill to swallow. I offer my sincerest wishes to Akis’ family, friends and fellow riders.”

The driver of the lorry stopped at the scene and no arrests have been made.

Mr Kollaros is the second cyclist to die on London’s roads this year after physiotherapist Stephanie Turner, 29, died on January 20 in Stamford Hill, less than three miles from the scene of Monday’s fatality.

Mr Kollaros’ parents are travelling to the UK today to make arrangements for his body to be repatriated to Greece for a funeral.

Campaign group Stop Killing Cyclists are holding a vigil and “die in protest” at the scene of the accident, by the junction with Wardle Street at 6pm on Monday February 9.

Police are appealing for witnesses to the accident to call police on 0208 543 5157 or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111.

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