Arts & Events

50 Years of Bringing Music to the People
June 3, 4 & 5 at UC Berkeley
Berkeley Community Chorus & Orchestra Performs Anti-War Masterpiece

Sally Douglas Arce
Thursday May 26, 2016 - 02:06:00 PM
Mary Borders (left) has sung with the Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra for 39 years.  She and  Joanne Ricketts (right), who has been with BCCO for 9 years, will join some 220 fellow chorus members in performances of an anti-war classical masterpiece on June 3, 4 and 5 at Hertz Hall on the U.C. Berkeley campus.   For the past five decades, BCCO has operated on the principle that great music should be available to all.  BCCO’s concerts are always free.
Ama Torrance
Mary Borders (left) has sung with the Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra for 39 years. She and Joanne Ricketts (right), who has been with BCCO for 9 years, will join some 220 fellow chorus members in performances of an anti-war classical masterpiece on June 3, 4 and 5 at Hertz Hall on the U.C. Berkeley campus. For the past five decades, BCCO has operated on the principle that great music should be available to all. BCCO’s concerts are always free.
Eugene Jones, the founder of Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra, was its director from 1966 to 1988.  Celebrating its 50th anniversary, BCCO will perform Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, an anti-war classical masterpiece, on June 3, 4 and 5 at Hertz Hall on the U.C. Berkeley campus.   For the past five decades, BCCO has operated on the principle that great music should be available to all.  BCCO’s concerts are always free.  For information, visit http://bcco.org or phone 510-433-9599.
The Eugene Jones' family
Eugene Jones, the founder of Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra, was its director from 1966 to 1988. Celebrating its 50th anniversary, BCCO will perform Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, an anti-war classical masterpiece, on June 3, 4 and 5 at Hertz Hall on the U.C. Berkeley campus. For the past five decades, BCCO has operated on the principle that great music should be available to all. BCCO’s concerts are always free. For information, visit http://bcco.org or phone 510-433-9599.
The Eugene Jones' family
The Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra (BCCO) celebrates its 50th anniversary.  Under the leadership of director Ming Luke, BCCO will perform Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, an anti-war classical masterpiece, on June 3, 4 and 5 at Hertz Hall on the U.C. Berkeley campus.   For the past five decades, BCCO has operated on the principle that great music should be available to all.  BCCO’s concerts are always free.  For information, visit http://bcco.org or phone 510-433-9599.
Bill Hocker
The Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra (BCCO) celebrates its 50th anniversary. Under the leadership of director Ming Luke, BCCO will perform Benjamin Britten's War Requiem, an anti-war classical masterpiece, on June 3, 4 and 5 at Hertz Hall on the U.C. Berkeley campus. For the past five decades, BCCO has operated on the principle that great music should be available to all. BCCO’s concerts are always free. For information, visit http://bcco.org or phone 510-433-9599.

The Berkeley Community Chorus & Orchestra (BCCO) marks its 50th anniversary with performances of an anti-war classical masterpiece concerts on June 3, 4 and 5 at Hertz Hall on the U.C. Berkeley campus. For the past five decades, BCCO has operated on the principle that great music should be available to all. BCCO’s concerts are always free. 

On June 3, 4 and 5, the 220-member chorus will perform Benjamin Britten's War Requiem Op. 66 at Hertz Hall on the UC Berkeley campus. Britten was a pacifist. He was commissioned to write this work to mark the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, which was built after the original fourteenth-century structure was destroyed in a World War II bombing raid. This anti-war piece includes poetry interspersed with the chorus and orchestra parts. 

“We call it our first 50 years and its about the power of singing in community,” says Mary Borders, who lives in North Oakland and has been with BCCO for 39 years. Borders, a soprano, has sung under all three music directors. Eugene Jones, an Oakland firefighter and accomplished professional musician, founded BCCO. He believed that anyone who wanted to sing could sing. Arlene Sagan, a passionate educator, also believed that people did not need to be professionals to sing. Through hard work and the support of fellow BCCO chorus members, they performed classical masterworks. Jones and Sagan had completed other careers and they brought enthusiasm and intensity to directing BCCO. 

Current director Ming Luke is an innovator, who has initiated a mentoring program for assistant directors. He has written, arranged and performed over 120 education concerts with the Berkeley Symphony, for whom he is the associate conductor. He conducts and guest conducts for other orchestras. 

Eugene Jones founded BCCO in 1966, under the auspices of the Berkeley Adult Education Program. With persistence, charisma, talent, and devotion he realized his dream of creating a chorus of non-auditioned singers and an orchestra drawn from the community that together would perform choral masterworks in free concerts for the general public. 

Borders has fond memories of Eugene Jones and his zeal for classical music. “He went beyond teaching us music theory and how to sing,” Borders says. “He gave the chorus a way to relate to the feelings in the music and a way to bring the music to life.” 

Jones’s daughter, Jeneane Jones, says her father taught with humor. During concerts, he would open his tuxedo to reveal specially made t-shirts with instructions to the chorus. Text included: “Watch the stick” and “Watch the body language,” the latter reminding singers to check their posture and sing from their diaphragm. 

Borders is a BCCO singer from earlier years, who is an active chorus member today. Berkeley residents, Linda Morris, a tenor, and Liz Raymer, an alto, Jan Murota, an alto, and Rhishi Limaye, a tenor, sing with BCCO. 

Liz Raymer, who is 86 year, joined BCCO for 22 years ago. "I sing because it gives me incredible joy,” Raymer says. “I love this kind of music and always have. I’ve probably sung 20 different requiems and classical pieces. It’s been proven that singing helps your emotional state and your brain." 

Ten years ago, Linda Morris began to sing with BCCO 10 years ago. She is a retired English professor with a specialty in American humor, women’s humor, and Mark Twain. Morris is a member of BCCO’s board of directors and past president of the board. 

Rhishikesh Limaye, who is in his 30s and a BCCO tenor, grew up in India and listened to Indian classical music. While taking coursework at UC Berkeley to complete a master’s degree in electrical engineering, he took a sight-reading class to learn more about Western music and classical music. “I like singing with BCCO,” Limaye says. “It gives me an opportunity to experience a big choral work by being a part of it and not just an audience member.” 

Janice Murota, a Berkeley native and retired physician, joined BCCO five years ago. “Singing in BCCO has opened up a world of music previously unknown to me,” Murota says. “BCCO combines the unusual traits of pursuing serious music at the highest level with a large, warm community.” 

With director Luke’s urging, BCCO has developed collaborations with orchestras and choruses, including the Oakland-East Bay Gay Men’s Chorus and the San Francisco Girls Chorus. In addition, this June, at Luke’s urging, BCCO chorus members will embark on their second international tour. 

Murota says, “It's astounding to me that we, amateur singers, work with the distinguished Ming Luke. He has raised the musical artistry of the BCCO chorus to new heights. I'm sure he has other plans to expand our reach and further our goal of bringing great music to everyone.” 

Joanne Ricketts, an alto, calls BCCO a musical inspiration. Over her nine years with the chorus, Ricketts sees BCCO as a bridge connecting each individual’s experience, no matter how different those experiences might be. 

“For me BCCO represents everything heaven represents,” Ricketts says. “It’s community. It’s open acceptance. Music allows for the expression of emotions that can’t always be put into words.” 

Ricketts’ musical experiences started with playing the flute in the fourth grade. She continues to play the flute, sings with her church choir and with BCCO, which has been her go-to place to sing. 

BCCO is a non-auditioned community chorus dedicated to performing major classical works with orchestral accompaniment, free to the public. BCCO draws singers from the broader Bay Area regardless of musical training or experience. It is rare for a chorus to accept singers without an audition. It is even more extraordinary to offer choral masterworks with full orchestration of this caliber free of charge. Chorus members pay tuition. 

Under the leadership of director Luke, BCCO will present three performances of Benjamin Britten’s War Requiem celebrating its 50th anniversary on Friday, June 3, at 8 p.m.; Saturday, June 4, at 4 p.m.; and Sunday, June 5, at 4 p.m. All BCCO concerts take place at Hertz Hall on the U.C. Berkeley campus. Concerts are free and open to the public; donations are encouraged. A pre-concert talk begins one hour before each of the three concerts. 

For information about BCCO concerts and events, call 510-433-9599 See http://bcco.org/