James Richard Day

June 24, 1948 – December 25, 2018

James R. Day of Portland, Oregon, passed away surrounded by his family on December 25, 2018, at his home in Gresham, Oregon. He was 70 years old.

Jim was born June 24, 1948 to C.R. Day and Carolyn Day in Portland, Oregon, and graduated from Franklin High School in 1966. He received his Bachelors and Masters in Music from the University of Portland, where he met Jane Sanborn in the music department. They married June 13, 1970, at Mt. Tabor Presbyterian Church, where he had been the organist since he was a teenager. They moved to Seattle where he played organ at University Presbyterian Church, then returned to Portland for an opportunity to compose and assemble the music for “Shekinah,” a musical presentation about the life of Jesus at the Keller Auditorium.

He was youth director at East Hill Foursquare Church in Gresham. His accomplishments include building a choir that sang Bach and mounting large productions such as Britten’s “Noah’s Flood.” For a time, he owned and ran The Grotto, the restaurant on Main Street across the street from Gresham High School, as a ministry to students. Later he served as Music Director at Smith Memorial Presbyterian Church in Fairview.

Jim composed and published many musical works, most sacred. Churches and organizations commissioned him to write choral works. He taught music composition for 20 years at Warner Pacific College in Portland. He wrote musical pieces for his kids when they were born and when they got married.

At one time, he had a three rank pipe organ in the house. He knew the organ literature and played all the major works from Bach to Widor.

In 1996, the Oregon Music Teachers Association named him Composer of the Year and commissioned a new work, “Songs from the Heart of the Artist.”

In 2000, suffering from kidney failure, he received an additional 18 years of life when his sister, Janet, gave him a kidney. Within a day he was feeling better and on his way to new projects. The year after his transplant, he completed “By This We Live,” a commission of musical settings of poems by Marilyn Sewell, pastor of First Unitarian Church.

Jim was part owner of the five generation family business, The Day Music Company. He returned to work there in 1980 and stayed until it closed in 2007.

After Day Music closed, Jim worked with the Rodgers Organ Company, developing innovative programs placing Roland keyboards in educational institutions.

In 2012 he returned to Mt. Tabor Presbyterian Church, serving as facilities manager. He started playing the organ again and gathering people together to make music.

Since childhood, Jim loved trips to the beach, spending time with family on the Oregon coast at Twin Rocks and on the Sandy River. His hobbies included fly fishing, biking and basketball. He would get interested in something, read the manual and learn how to do it. He taught a parent/child class on how to build wooden canoes out of strips of cedar.

He was at times melancholy but always personable, finding humor at the intersection of the sacred and profane. He was a prankster with a good heart. He had an active mind and was curious about many things. He made beer, wrote poems, grew dahlias, owned a 1950 Packard and a Metropolitan, and tried out remote control airplanes.

Favorite authors included Christina Rossetti, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, C.S. Lewis and David James Duncan.

He is survived by his wife of 48 years, Jane; children Emily Day-Shumway (Kevin), Joanna Day (Andy Bachtiar) and Nathan Day (Lydia); siblings Bob Day and Janet Murphy; and six grandchildren: Ethan, Avery, Quinn, Soren, Jonah and Lila.

A Celebration of Life will be held, Sunday, December 30, 1 p.m., at Mat Tabor Presbyterian Church. Memorial donations may be made to the Music Fund at Mt Tabor Presbyterian Church, 5441 SE Belmont St, Portland, OR, 97215.

“I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now.” C.S. Lewis, The Last Battle