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James M. Palmer Taught optics, but loved music
Life Stories
This new feature chronicles the lives of Tucsonans. Some were well-known across the community. Others had an impact on a smaller sphere of friends, family and acquaintances. Many of these people led interesting — and sometimes extraordinary — lives with little or no fanfare. Now you'll hear their stories.
"Whenever we would have conversations, it was always music-based and you can tell that was his passion and his love."
Grayson Hirst,
Artistic director, Sons of Orpheus

Tucson Region

Optical engineer was the 'No. 1 choral-music fan'

By Kimberly Matas
arizona daily star
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 01.11.2007
James "Jim" Palmer's professional resume reads like a profile from a science journal.
The two-page document lists his academic accomplishments, including a Ph.D. in optical sciences; a professorship at the University of Arizona where he specialized in optics radiometry — the measurement of light — until his retirement in June 2004; the publication of more than 60 articles and papers; work as a consultant for multi-million-dollar corporations; myriad affiliations with scientific and engineering committees and societies; and awards, including the NASA Group Achievement Award for developing a light-measuring device that was sent to Venus.
Yet music was Palmer's passion. The baritone's list of musical achievements — posted on his Web site www.optics. arizona.edu/Palmer/ — is more than three times as long as his professional resume.
Palmer, 69, who died Jan. 4 from chondrosarcoma — a type of bone cancer that invaded his cervical spine — will be remembered by friends from Tucson's scientific and music communities at a memorial Jan. 29.
His colleague at the UA College of Optical Sciences, Mike Nofziger was a former student of Palmer's. They shared an interest in science and an enthusiasm for music.
"The musical side of him is something that, interestingly enough, ... kind of got lost in the shuffle," Nofziger said.
"His music was a large part of what he was. He traveled the world over as a result of that," Nofziger said, but "he realized early on, as I did, that you can earn a pretty comfortable living as an engineer, unlike music."
On his Web site, Palmer explained his career choice.
"Many years ago, while in 7th grade, I took a battery of interest and aptitude tests," he wrote. "They showed equal interest and aptitude in both music and science/math. It was not too difficult to come to the proper decision: engineering would be the career and music would be the avocation. After all, second-rate engineers still earn enough to eat."
He started his musical education with piano lessons, then switched to trumpet and spent four years playing in his Illinois high school jazz band. After a short stint in the school marching band, Palmer wrote, "I soon discovered that it is impossible to make good music while marching through mud, slush and snow with a mouthpiece frozen to your lips."
A highlight of his musical endeavors was playing trumpet in a band with fellow Grinnell College student Herbie Hancock, when the now-famous jazz musician was pursuing double majors in music and electrical engineering at the Iowa school.
Nofziger said he was equally impressed with Palmer's stories of performing with Hancock and as a backup singer for the Dave Brubeck Quartet in the mid-1990s.
Through his affiliations with a number of choral, classical, pop and jazz groups across the country, Palmer got to perform throughout the United States — including at the Hollywood Bowl in California and at Carnegie Hall in New York — and throughout the world, singing at the Sistine Chapel and during a Papal Mass in St. Peter's Square, both at the Vatican.
Palmer was a founding member of the Masterworks Chamber Singers, now the Tucson Mastersingers, in 1983, and of the Sons of Orpheus men's chorus in 1992.
"He was the number one choral-music fan of all time," said Grayson Hirst, artistic director for the Sons of Orpheus. "Whenever we would have conversations it was always music-based and you can tell that was his passion and his love.
"He loved singing in choirs," Hirst said. "He was very good at it. Jim relished a challenging repertoire and a fast pace and he found that for a while in Orpheus, then he moved on to other choirs. I don't think he ever hung his hat in any one choir for very long."
His other loves, in later years, were his golden retrievers. Palmer has a page on his Web site dedicated to his dogs. There, he wrote: "If everybody had a golden retriever, the world would be a better place."
"I think that (music) was really his life; that and his golden retrievers," said Linda Jones, who performed with Palmer in the Tucson MasterSingers choral.
"He had been married twice," Nofziger said. "The dogs became his life companions in later years. I know because I was there the day we took the last, Baily, and had to have her put down. That was in the middle of his (Palmer's) three-year struggle with cancer. That was really hard for him. That really tore him up."
When noting Baily's death on his Web site, Palmer wrote, simply: "I really miss her."
"He was such a dear, sweet man," Jones said. "You had no idea how accomplished he was until you start reading about him. He was very humble."
On StarNet: The "Life Stories" series of articles will be kept online at go.azstarnet.com/lifestories
● Life Stories chronicles the lives of Tucsonans. If you'd like to suggest someone who should be included, contact reporter Kimberly Matas at kmatas@azstarnet.com.
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