James (Jim) C[larence] Page (November, 20, 1934, Yakima, WA - January 19, 2019, College Place, WA)
James C. Page, baritone, retired San Francisco Community Music Center Teacher and former husband of opera empressaria / mezzo-soprano Harriet March Page, died of complications from cancer on January 19, 2019, at his home in College Place, WA.
The Washington State born musician, 84 years old, diagnosed only recently, was receiving hospice care.
Page's influence on generations of San Francisco vocal students remains widespread to this day.
Plans are being made to hold a memorial concert in San Francisco. The Opus Project's February 24 program (8pm, Diablo Valley College Music Building, Pleasant Hill, CA) will be dedicated to his memory.
With Page at his bedside was his younger daughter, lyric soprano Letitia C. Page and her partner, Tom Lytle.
His death came as a surprise, as he had been in comparatively good health until very recently.
Besides Harriet and Letitia, he is survived by his sister, June Christensen; elder daughter, Megan David, of Vacaville, CA; son Marek, who lives in Portland, OR, and grand-daughter Claire Palmer-Page, of Seattle.
The baritone's body was taken to Herring Groseclose Funeral Home at 315 West Alder Street, Walla Walla, with funeral service pending. Cremation will be followed by a scattering of ashes near his boyhood ranch in Lyle, WA, in a canyon north of the Columbia River, northwest of The Dalles, OR.
James Clarence Page was born in Yakima, WA, Nov. 20, 1934. He was the second of two children born to Letitia (Lettie) Page and her husband, a baker in The Dalles and Lyle.
He sang in Seventh-Day Adventist choirs, went into the army as a conscientious objector to Germany, and studied at the Stuttgart Hochschule fur Musik with composer Hermann Reutter. He remained overseas, with his wife Eunice, who later divorced him.
Page moved to Portland, OR, and sang for the Portland Opera Company, while studying with its Music Director / Conductor Eugene Fuerst.
He met Harriet March in 1965 at the Opera Workshop in Portland, directed by Fuerst and his wife Sophie. Page and March married in September of 1966. Both appeared in Portland Opera productions, directed by Herbert Weiskopf.
Page competed in the 1967 Merola Program, with Kurt Herbert Adler, besting John Duykers, who won in the following year. In the fall of '67, the Page and March Page moved to Sindelfingen, Germany, near Stuttgardt. They returned to the United States, settling in San Francicisco by Thanksgiving, 1969, and sang in the SF Opera Chorus.
The couple's two younger children were born in 1971 and 1973, with Page and March Page divorcing in 1976.
Page began his teaching career at San Francisco Community Music Center shortly thereafter. He retired in 1999, and moved to College Place, where his sister and other relatives had settled.
The baritone visited his former wife and her new partner, composer-conductor Mark Alburger, in California, on February 12, 2009.
March Page and Alburger travelled to College Place to celebrate various occasions with Page and family in November 2009,
December 2010,
July 2016,
and
December 2017.
Page's remarkable presence -- a booming, enthusiastic, huge, positive demeanor and voice, coupled with a signature hip Santa Claus esthetic of white beard and ponytail -- will long be remembered.
***
19th day of spring,
high up 7 to 67,
and by far the warmest of the year to date --
Roy checking in re tree service,
climbing
up
to
the
roof
and
liberating
it
from
leaning
boughs
(slow
saw
=
rhythm;
fast,
tone).
Harriet arrives home from errands with the sad news, via telephone from Tisha, of Jim's death, and, while we knew this seemed inevitable, given recent turns of events, the finality still comes as a shock.
He will be greatly missed!
Restricted as we are (travel-wise), given the season and Harriet's academic (and mine, soon) responsibilities, we will have to wait to pay at least some our respects later.
Much of the day has been given over to celebrate Megan's 58th birthday (and she is sanguine about her father's death on same, finding a mystical connection therein),
so we are
initially out
on a
cake-
and-
ice-cream
run,
then
eventually
rendezvous'ing with teh
day-of-all-days girl and Jeff at Red Lobster,
making use of Bette and George's generous, and by now traditional (though we do not take it for granted!), gift certificate. It's the Admiral's Platter -- 1650 calories [!] of breaded clams, flounder, scallops (these just don't seem to be available anywhere else locally!), and shrimp + french fries (which will last not only tonight but for three additional meals in the coming week) -- augmented by Harriet's shrimp tacos and Megan & Jeff's surf n' turf.
Homeward after
for more merriment,
preceeded by candle-lighting and
silent meditation for Jim.
Thereafter,
the Mildred Hill (1869-1916)
Happy Birthday to You (1893... fill in "Megan" now!),
white cake
with strawberry / vanilla ice cream,
and
spirited conversation about drama, ecology, music, quantum physics, spirituality -- before Jeff and Megan head to Cache Creek... they have rarely if ever driven to Capay Valley in the daytime, ditto Harriet and I re night... Speaking of which, it's getting late, so the editing of page 31 new-edition Mice and Men, Op. 45: Act IV, and composing pages 2 / 4 --
The Decameron, Op. 289
100 Novels for Voices and Instruments, after the work (1353) of Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375)
Tenth Day / Novel VIII -
Sophronia, albeit she deems herself wife to Gisippus, is wife to Titus Quintius Fulvus
Broke Dance Suite, Op. 290
IVb3. Basse Dance (Jouyssance Vous Donneray)
-- interspersed thoroughout the day with general catch-up, comes to a blissful end,
along with another Igor Stravinsky (1882-1971) playlist
Oedipus Rex (1927)
The Fairy's Kiss (1928)
Four Etudes for Orchestra (1928)
Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra (1929)
Symphony of Psalms (1930)
