Arts and Culture

Berkeley Community Chorus & Orchestra Turns 50

Published

11 years ago

January 8, 2016

By Sally Douglas Arce

It’s remarkable yet true. For 50 years, the Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra (BCCO) has provided free concerts.

Eugene Jones, an African American who was a firefighter and had a passion for classical music, founded the chorus in 1966.

<p>He broke through segregation against African Americans both as a firefighter and as a basso-voiced opera singer.

The 50th Anniversary celebration begins with three concerts performed Friday, Jan. 8 through Sunday, Jan. 10 at Hertz Hall, UC Berkeley – all with free admission, but donations are encouraged.

Led by Music Director Ming Luke, the 220-member chorus will perform Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms; a new work by Kurt Erickson, commissioned for the anniversary; and music to honor BCCO’s former music directors.

Ming Luke, the current director of the Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra (BCCO), conducts the BCCO Spring 2015 Concert at Hertz Hall, UC Berkeley.

Jones directed BCCO for 22 years, from1966 – 1988. He crossed the color barrier both as an Oakland firefighter in the late 1940s and as a Bay Area opera singer in the ’50s, singing with the San Francisco Spring Opera, the Oakland Light Opera and the San Francisco Municipal Opera Chorus.

In the 1940s and 1950s, African Americans in classical music were few and far between. “He was not able to make the strides that someone who was European would have been able to make,” says Jeneane Jones, his daughter, and a violinist who performed with BCCO.

“That was a painful reality for him. It did not prevent him from pushing into areas that were not receptive to African American musicians.” Jeneane teaches violin both privately and with a music school in the Gaithersburg, MD area.

Both his daughters, Miriam and Jeneane, testify that their father had an incredible voice and was devoted to music.

“We all have a passion for music,” says Miriam Jones, referring to her mother and three siblings. “I love listening to all types of music. But, no one had as much passion for it as our father.”

For many years, Jones suffered from glaucoma, a progressive disease that reduces a person’s vision field. Despite an inability to view a musical score in its entirety, he never allowed that deficit to prevent him from conducting. For him, it just meant studying the music more and learning how to memorize scores.

With persistence, charisma, talent, and devotion, Jones 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.

The first African American conductor of a large Bay Area chorus and orchestra, Eugene Jones guided the group, bringing great choral works (which often featured his superb bass voice) to BCCO singers and audiences.

When he died at the age of 79 in the fall of 2003, many longtime BCCO members sang at his memorial service.

Eugene Jones, a native of Buffalo, N.Y., came to Oakland in 1945 after serving in World War II as a Navy cook. He became a firefighter at a time when black and white firefighters worked at separate stations.

Jones retired from the Oakland Fire Department in 1969. Jones married Irene Idella Jones, who attended U.C. Berkeley and stopped her studies, before completing a bachelor’s degree, to marry and have a family.

In addition to BCCO, Jones, in the early 1960s, formed “Echos from Jordan,” an African American a cappella chorus that sang Negro spirituals. Performing for about 7 years, they were 40-50 voices and sang at the Kaiser Center in Oakland.

On Oct. 17m Friends of Negro Spirituals, a nonprofit organization, posthumously presented Eugene Jones with an award for his work to keep the heritage of African Americans strong through oral histories and music.

Also, from the late 1960s until 1972, Jones toured the country with his oratorical performance, “Black Man Speaks,” combining classic spirituals and oratory denouncing racism.

For more information about Berkeley Community Chorus and Orchestra and the Jan. 8, 9 and 10 performance, visit http://bcco.org/

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Arts and Culture

Prescott Circus Theatre Presents Free Summer Performance Series

Now in its 41st year, the Prescott Circus Theatre is a nationally recognized performing arts education program for Oakland youth. The circus offers safe environments that challenge Oakland youth, through circus arts training, to develop the skills and confidence to thrive on stage, in school, and in life.

Published

2 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

Prescott Circus showcase pathways pyramid. Photo courtesy of Prescott Circus.

By Post Staff

The Prescott Circus, Oakland’s longest-running youth circus, is returning this summer with its free shows. Join the Prescott Circus’s young stars as they share their joys and talents through stilt-dancing, tumbling, juggling, and more.

At the heart of this one-hour show, which demonstrates teamwork, pride, and joy, are Oakland Unified School District students ages 8 – 17 from more than 10 different schools

This is accomplished through no-cost school and community programs for more than 300 Oakland youth each year. Performing company members from Prescott, where the program began, perform and make appearances at as many as 40 Bay Area events each year.

The summer program is funded in part by Oakland Fund for Children and Youth, California Arts Council, Port of Oakland, and the West Davis & Bergard Foundation.

Performances will be held Tuesday, July 14, 11 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. (ASL interpreted) and Wednesday, July 15, 11 a.m., at the Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, 1428 Alice St., Oakland. For free reservations go to

https://PrescottCircusSummerShows.eventbrite.com

For group reservations for camps, childcare centers, senior centers, go to www.prescottcircus.org

A community show will be held Saturday, July 18, 2 p.m. to 3 p.m., at DeFremery Park,1651 Adeline St., Oakland.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

50 Years Later, ‘Wake Up Everybody!’ Still Resonates During Black Music

The words of the song, “Wake Up Everybody,” debuted by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes in 1975, still resonate today as those words are just as relevant more than a half century later.

Published

2 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

iStockphoto.

By Hazel Trice Edney, Special to The Post

Hazel Trice Edney

“Wake up, everybody, No more sleepin’ in bed

No more backward thinkin’. Time for thinkin’ ahead

The world has changed so very much from what it used to be.

There is so much hatred, war, and poverty.

“The world won’t get no better If we just let it be.

Naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw.

The world won’t get no better. We gotta change it, yeah– just you and me.”

The words of the song, “Wake Up Everybody,” debuted by Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes in 1975, still resonate today as those words are just as relevant more than a half century later.

In a rare, nearly somber moment, the group’s celebrated lead singer, Teddy Pendergrass, introduced the song on Soul Train, the weekly dance and live performance TV show that aired roughly between 1971 and 2006. Pendergrass told the attentive live audience and thousands watching by television that Wake Up Everybody, the title tune of their most recent album, was intended to inspire people to take action with a goal to change America for the better.

“I’m sure that you will all agree that there are things that need to be done in this country today,” he said. “So, what I’d like for you to do is listen very carefully to see what you can do to lend a hand.”

The song’s appeal worked.

“I played that song over and over and over again because it was a constant warning to keep ourselves prepared for the society that we were living in,” says A. Peter Bailey, then a 37-year-old former aide to Malcolm X.

When “Wake Up Everybody” hit the airwaves, Bailey was working as an associate editor of Ebony Magazine. “It was a call to be aware of what we were dealing with in the country that we lived in, the world we lived in, the neighborhood we lived in, the cities that we lived in,” Bailey said in an interview with the Trice Edney News Wire.

He concluded that during Black Music Month 2026, such songs should be recalled and celebrated as a key to changes for the good across America; especially because such songs successfully encouraged people to deal with the issues that might otherwise denigrate the promises of America, including the promise that “All men are created equal,”as stated in the Declaration of Independence.

“The rhythms and blues expressed our joys, our sorrows and our fears,” Bailey recalls. “It was those songs and the singing of those songs by our people that attracted us to the campaigns for justice.”

With his life inspired by that song and others, Bailey, now 88, went on to establish and teach a Black Press class at Virginia Commonwealth University. Also, he has since written three books, including a memoir, “Witnessing Brother Malcolm X, the Master Teacher,” in which he expounded upon successful principles of social justice, some of which are reflected in “Wake Up Everybody.”

Long before the term “woke” became associated with campaigns for justice, Pendergrass led the song that reverberated across America and still holds deep meaning.

The ‘wake up’ call exhorts teachers to ‘teach a new way,’ doctors to heal elders, and builders to ‘build a new land… we can do it if we all lend a hand.”

The song concludes:

“The world won’t get no better if we just let it be. Naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw, naw. The world won’t get no better. We gotta change it, yeah – just you and me.”

Hazel Trice Edney wrote this story as part of a four-part series powered by AARP in commemoration of Black Music Month, June 2026.

Oakland Post

Posts by Oakland Post

Activism

Inaugural Juneteenth Awards Ceremony Celebrates the Fillmore’s Black History, Leadership and Resilience

Addressing more than 100 Black and Asian attendees, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie stated “San Francisco is reliant on the Black community, and we must invest in this community.”

Published

2 weeks ago

June 26, 2026

Oakland Post

District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood, Rev. Dr. Amos Brown, Pastor Emeritus of Third Baptist Church, SF Mayor Daniel Lurie. Photo by Linda Parker Pennington.

By Linda Parker Pennington

The Fillmore Community Ambassadors held its first annual Juneteenth Wesley Johnson White Horse Awards ceremony on June 19 inside the newly reopened Fillmore Heritage Center.

The event featured awards for former San Francisco mayors London Breed and Willie Brown, along with Third Baptist Church Pastor Emeritus, Rev. Dr. Amos Brown.

The Koret Heritage lobby at the newly reopened center at 1330 Fillmore St. held a standing-room-only, culturally diverse and multi-generational audience while the art gallery featured photos of Fillmore community members in action, red Japanese lanterns, art and calligraphy, and Chinese artwork, giving the space a multicultural feel.

Addressing more than 100 Black and Asian attendees, San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie stated “San Francisco is reliant on the Black community, and we must invest in this community.”

District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood acknowledged that “the Fillmore community has had a difficult history. Thanks to Rev. Amos Brown’s continuous focus on accountability and resistance, you hold us accountable and continue to inspire us.”

Mahmoud is referring to the Fillmore’s Japanese residents who were forced from their homes and sent to concentration camps during World War II. Black people occupied those homes until the return of their Japanese neighbors and then gave them back, while homes that had been unoccupied were lost. The presence of the Asian community on Juneteenth is a testament to that shared history.

In receiving his honor, Amos Brown elicited a powerful spontaneous call-and-response, where members of San Francisco’s many Black churches proudly shouted out the names: “Bethel AME! Providence Baptist! Jones Memorial! Glide!”

Awards program Master of Ceremonies Shawn Richards of Brothers Against Guns warmly introduced Breed, highlighting her many accomplishments, particularly on “March 16, 2020, when she became the first mayor to shut down a major U.S. city due to COVID-19, saving thousands of lives.”

The audience was captivated by Breed’s emotional speech touching on past traumas, present conditions, and future hopes for the neighborhood where she grew up.

She recalled another trauma of the neighborhood during the City’s redevelopment era in the 1960s, where Black residents were forced to move with a promise of being able to return that was largely unfulfilled.

“We remember when this land was just a field because they bulldozed hundreds of Victorian homes that Black people owned. They built the Fillmore Center, where most Black people can’t afford to live or start their own business. But we are still here.”