A piano and violins sang strains of the Schumann pieces John Daverio loved.
Friends, colleagues and students warmed the crowd with stories of the man they were honoring, some peppering their speech with the humor for which Daverio was well known.
About 400 people who called the College of Fine Arts professor a mentor and an inspiration gathered Sunday night to pay tribute to Daverio at the Tsai Performance Center, many still expressing confusion and frustration with the unexpected way in which their friend died.
Daverio’s body was found in the Charles River near Boston University on April 14, after the 48-year-old CFA musicology professor had been missing for nearly a month. Friends, family and colleagues remain mystified about what happened to Daverio, who was a “righteous man,” according to Jeremy Yudkin, an associate professor of musicology at BU who spoke Sunday night.
Music was the focal point of the service, as performers played five pieces expressing the “inevitable yearning” of the community, according to School of Music Director Andre de Quadros.
Theodore Antoniou, a CFA music professor, composed the final piece that was played by a lone French horn. Antoniou said he wrote the piece right after hearing the news on April 14.
“We will not end the night with words; we will finish with music,” de Quadros said of the horn solo that completed the evening. “The long, last, lamenting note will be the last sound heard here tonight.”
Speakers lamented the loss of Daverio’s humor, intellectualism and compassion. They praised the dedication he showed to his students and his academic pursuits, and they complimented his musical abilities.
“How much we will miss out daily dose of John’s friendship,” said CFA Dean Walt Meissner, who said Daverio “taught me by example what is a perfect faculty member.”
Joel Sheveloff, Daverio’s former professor and current colleague in the musicology department, brought the somber crowd to laughter several times as he recounted how he and Daverio often “strategically placed song lines in our dialogue.”
Sheveloff described Daverio’s “fleeting smile of satisfaction just below his mustache” that would appear whenever he won an intellectual duel or pulled a harmless prank.
Chancellor John Silber, who attended the memorial, said Sheveloff’s tribute was particularly “outstanding.” Silber also expressed appreciation for Antoniou’s “Lament for John,” which will be part of a series of similar pieces composed to commemorate the professor’s life.
Daverio’s parents and cousin also sent statements that were read at the service.
Those who attended said the memorial was appropriate and moving. Seth Pritikin, a senior staff assistant in CFA’s music department, knew Daverio from the hallways of CFA, where Pritikin said Daverio always had a smile for everybody.
“It was great to hear all the different people from different parts of his life talk about how good he was,” Pritikin said after the service.
Students expressed their sadness at losing a professor who many called one of dignity and integrity.
“Those were among the most inspiring lectures of our lives,” said Effie Papanikolaou, one of Daverio’s former students.
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