Berkeley chorus, orchestra to start their 60th year with Verdi’s ‘Requiem’

When Eugene Jones founded the Berkeley Community Chorus & Orchestra in 1966, he may never have imagined the chorus continuing for 60 years. Jones, who died in 2003, was the first African American conductor of a large Bay Area chorus and orchestra drawn from its local community. Devoted to presenting great works from the choral canon, Jones was a charismatic leader and often lent his glorious bass voice to the choir.

Similarly, when Giuseppe Verdi commemorated Italian novelist and poet Alessandro Manzoni by composing his “Requiem...