VCU students, faculty remember Bick

“The school has certainly lost one of the finest musicians around,” Mike Boyd said. “He was not only a great percussionist but he was also a fantastic conductor.”

Boyd is one of many former students remembering Donald Bick, an associate music professor at VCU who died in early October. Bick suffered from multiple health problems and died after a short illness.

“He built this program up into something quite phenomenal,” said Boyd, an associate music professor who taught with Bick the last four years. “I mean this is his program. Whatever anybody else comes in and does here afterward is merely continuing what he started.”

Bick came to VCU in 1974. He also spent 24 years as the principal percussionist for the Richmond Symphony Orchestra.

“He was really a walking encyclopedia,” Boyd said. “He knew scores. He could pull out the melodies for you and study them even though you may have listened to it a million times. He knew exactly what was going on. It was like he had his own i-Pod in his head.”

Joshua Bateson, a former student who studied with Bick for slightly less than nine years, described the noticeable impact Bick’s death has had on him and other former students.

“I think the students have really come together,” Bateson said. “Since this happened we all took some time to get together and reflect on what happened. I think that act alone brought us together closer. Even (this semester’s) freshmen that only knew him for the month and a half that he was here felt a closeness to him and, in turn, felt a closeness to us because we shared so many positive things about Mr. Bick.”

John Guthmiller, the chairman of VCU’s Department of Music, also talked about Bick’s impact on his students and on the School of the Arts.

“He had an extremely strong studio, full of some of the finest students we’ve ever had in this department. He was here 30 years, so he had quite a number of students who play in military bands and orchestras and teach at colleges and universities all over the country.”

Greg Giannascoli, one of Bick’s former students and now a world-renowned Marimba artist, called Bick’s death “a terrible loss.”

“He was a great teacher, musician, friend and human being,” Giannascoli said. “He was really a great teacher and he could bring out a lot of things that you didn’t even know you had.”

But above all else, Giannascoli said Bick taught musicianship.

“(He taught) a certain level of professionalism, which has helped me quite a bit. Just as a general attitude to have about always making sure you’re on time, always making sure you’re 100 percent prepared and ready to play. I would say the musicianship that I got from him, the stuff that he stressed in his classes has helped me immensely in my career.”

Many described their former colleague and/or teacher as a quiet and reserved individual with a strict approach to teaching and performing. Boyd, who teaches his former colleague’s classes since his death, said Bick established a sort of code or ethic that all percussion students must be ready to play.

“He was a firm believer in showing up early and being prepared. He was never late, he was always on time…so you’d better be in there, have your stuff set up and ready to go cause his baton went down at 12. He led by example.”

Bateson elaborated on Bick being serious about music and dedicated to his job saying “he was always one who would never take a break. He always had something going on, either a performance to go play in or a rehearsal to go to. So he didn’t spend all of his time here at VCU because he had a lot of outside gigs to play in.

Although some found him strict and intimidating, Boyd said “he was real down to earth.

“He was a really funny man. He was hilarious. Like I said, he was a man of few words, but when you got him talking he would crack you up. He fit into a stereotypical symphony player mode. He dressed conservatively. He acted very reserved. So when you saw him break out and just start acting like one of the guys, it was even funnier. He had this sharp wit.

“He was a father figure to a lot of us, our second dad.”