Denis Wick Remembered (1931 – 2025) | Blessed with finding what he loved to do at an early age, Denis Wick dedicated his life’s work to trombone performance, music education, and supporting the efforts of brass musicians around the world by creating brass accessories that would elevate their natural abilities.
Denis Wick designed his first mouthpiece after becoming principal trombonist of the London Symphony Orchestra. Inspired by the challenging acoustics of the rehearsal hall, Denis began his efforts to design a mouthpiece that would make his job easier. The success of his first mouthpiece began a lifelong passion to solve the issues that lay between brass musicians and their performance tools.
| “Eventually when you are talking about playing, you have to do something with bits of metal because the human body can’t do everything.” -Denis Wick
As an innovator, the art that Denis and his fellow musicians were tasked to create became the inspiration to his craft. Great music is created though a musician’s unique interpretation of sound and storytelling. As a great musician himself, Denis Wick understood that the human body had its limits to translating these very personal interpretations, and he made it his ambition to create the “bits of metal” that would allow the musician to complete their masterpiece.
As an educator, Denis led many pupils to successful performance careers by focusing them on the primary goal of beautiful, heathy sound. If the sound was healthy, if the student could “sing through the instrument”, the job was being done correctly. If the sound was unhealthy, sounding manipulated, forced, or stifled, there was still work to be done.
| “The music is the boss, technique is the servant.”- Denis Wick
Focusing on Denis Wick’s goals as a performer, innovator, and educator provide insight into the inspiration behind each of his mouthpiece and mute designs: to create products that effortlessly produce and promote each musician’s unique sound and solve the issues that stood between a musician and their best performance. Collaborating with musicians around the world, including his son and professional tubist Stephen Wick, Denis Wick brought these solutions to reality through Denis Wick Products, Ltd.
| “Money was never the motivation. The idea was to solve the problem.” – Denis Wick
It is with great sadness that we acknowledge the passing of Denis Wick. And yet, it is with great joy we appreciate Denis Wick’s devotion to his personal performance, education, and to the creation of products that elevate the health, support, and performance of musicians all over the world.
Your Art is Our Craft, in one sentence, sentence tells the story of the beginning, present and future of Denis Wick Products. With the combined efforts of our artist group and community, sales, marketing, and manufacturing teams, it is our joy to continue Denis Wick’s tradition of innovation, precision design, and performance ready products driven by your most inspired art.
| “My interest and continued thrill was playing the wonderful music that seemed to be coming in an endless stream. This was truly heaven on earth. I recall seeing the latest film at the local cinema and thinking my life was much more interesting than this fiction.” – Denis Wick
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