Bios

Jackson Berkey • composer / pianist / teacher

Jackson Berkey’s published catalog offers over 350 compositions encompassing choral, solo vocal and instrumental, chamber ensemble, band and orchestral works, as well as concerti and works for chorus and orchestra. Premières of commissions have taken place in America and abroad on university campuses and concert stages and by professional musicians as well as massed children’s choirs. Awards and honors include the Nebraska Individual Artist Fellowship for Performing Arts Distinguished Achievement in Composition Award, First Prize in the New Music for Young Ensembles Composition Contest in New York City, First Prize at the Alienor Harpsichord Competition in Hilton Head (NC) and award-winning video scores.

Best-known nationally as a pianist and recording artist, Jackson celebrated 35 years in 2008 as featured keyboardist with Mannheim Steamroller. In the classical world, his recordings for American Gramaphone and SDG Records® continue to elicit rave reviews.

Recent premières include his Organ Concerto, Conversations for Harp and Chamber Orchestra, Suite for Two Pianos, Genius of the Wood, Nr. 1 Noel, Soft Voices-Sweet Violets and Rose Leaves, Firelight, and A Minor Incident. Jackson has been writing major choral/orchestral works for New York City performances every two years. In these premières, Almeda Berkey conducts massed choirs and orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Performances have included Come, Follow Me!, Crucifixus, Cantate 2000, South Dakota Shadows, American Journey, In Memoriam: Kassarjian, and Thoughts and Remembrances.

In another grand endeavor, Jackson is composing 24 Nocturnes, one in each key. His work shows great respect and connections to Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Barber, and Copland. As a “21st Century Romantic” Jackson has developed his own writing style with beautiful and soaring melodies, exciting and driving rhythms, and lush vertical sonorities. His newest piano solos reveal his deep maturity as pianist and consummate composer.

	Jackson Berkey • composer / pianist / teacher Jackson Berkey’s published catalog offers over 350 compositions encompassing choral, solo vocal and instrumental, chamber ensemble, band and orchestral works, as well as concerti and works for chorus and orchestra. Premières of commissions have taken place in America and abroad on university campuses and concert stages and by professional musicians as well as massed children’s choirs. Awards and honors include the Nebraska Individual Artist Fellowship for Performing Arts Distinguished Achievement in Composition Award, First Prize in the New Music for Young Ensembles Composition Contest in New York City, First Prize at the Alienor Harpsichord Competition in Hilton Head (NC) and award-winning video scores. Best-known nationally as a pianist and recording artist, Jackson celebrated 35 years in 2008 as featured keyboardist with Mannheim Steamroller. In the classical world, his recordings for American Gramaphone and SDG Records® continue to elicit rave reviews. Recent premières include his Organ Concerto, Conversations for Harp and Chamber Orchestra, Suite for Two Pianos, Genius of the Wood, Nr. 1 Noel, Soft Voices-Sweet Violets and Rose Leaves, Firelight, and A Minor Incident. Jackson has been writing major choral/orchestral works for New York City performances every two years. In these premières, Almeda Berkey conducts massed choirs and orchestra at Carnegie Hall. Performances have included Come, Follow Me!, Crucifixus, Cantate 2000, South Dakota Shadows, American Journey, In Memoriam: Kassarjian, and Thoughts and Remembrances. In another grand endeavor, Jackson is composing 24 Nocturnes, one in each key. His work shows great respect and connections to Stravinsky, Rachmaninoff, Debussy, Barber, and Copland. As a “21st Century Romantic” Jackson has developed his own writing style with beautiful and soaring melodies, exciting and driving rhythms, and lush vertical sonorities. His newest piano solos reveal his deep maturity as pianist and consummate composer.
	SDG Press® publications can be licensing for recording through The Harry Fox Agency website, at http://www.songfile.com/ (The SDG Press® Account number at The Harry Fox Agency is P10697.)

	Almeda Berkey • conductor / soprano / teacher Almeda Berkey; conductor, lyric soprano, and lyricist; co-founded Nebraska’s Professional Chorale Soli Deo Gloria Cantorum in 1988 and continues to direct its artistic endeavors. Forty years conducting credits include seven Cantorum recordings. Her Master of Music degree in voice was augmented by much conducting study, and her choral conducting style is derived from such diverse sources of inspiration as America’s Norman Luboff and Sweden’s Eric Ericson. For several years, she was the American jurist for the annual International Folksong Choir Festival in Barcelona, Spain, and conducts biennially at New York City’s Carnegie Hall. After having sung many American-Canadian tours with the Norman Luboff Choir, she was Director of Choral Activities at the University of Nebraska at Omaha for four years and has conducted the Omaha Cantata Choir for 30 years. Almeda has written texts for and conducted several premières of Jackson Berkey choral and solo works. For nine years she served on the Board of Directors of Chorus America, an organization representing North American professional and independent choral ensembles, and on the international ChoralNet board. Frequently serving as adjudicator and master class clinician, she also maintains a private voice and conducting studio in Omaha. Playing keyboards with Mannheim Steamroller in concerts since 1973 has taken her across America, Canada, and Europe. Almeda recorded Jackson’s Voices from the Earth song cycle with her husband playing the Horowitz Steinway and sang the première of two Berkey songs with the Omaha Symphony Chamber Orchestra. She continues to sing and guest conduct, including a 1994 telecast of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and the AmericaFest 2001 International Women’s Choir Festival in Seattle, as well as massed choirs and orchestra at the new Harmony Hall in Fukui, Japan. Being comfortable in all styles of music, Almeda is especially gifted at creating a diversity of tonal color and a full range of emotional intensity of the choral ensemble as she develops its complete performance potential.