Did you know? The keyboard player on those Mannheim Steamroller records was born in Huntingdon.
Jackson Berkey was born here on May 24, 1942. He took a master's in piano performance at Juilliard, studying in the studio of Josef Raieff, and had sessions with Vincent Persichetti and William Schuman. He made his Town Hall debut in New York in 1969. In 2009 Steinway named him a Steinway Artist.
His own catalog describes him as featured keyboardist with Mannheim Steamroller. It also lists over four hundred published titles of his own writing: choral and vocal works, chamber and instrumental pieces, band and orchestral writing, concerti, and works for chorus and orchestra.
So the man at those keyboards has several hundred pieces of his own out in the world under his own name.
Nothing further from the county histories. The six histories held here end in 1913 and this story belongs to 2009, so there is no passage in them that bears on it. Rather than attach an unrelated page and let it look like corroboration, this story stands on the sources listed below.
What the fact check changed. FIVE NUMBERS AND ONE ROLE CLAIM REMOVED. This post was almost entirely numbers, and almost none of them held up. 1. "co-founded" is CONTESTED and is cut. Wikipedia says "co-founded with Chip Davis in 1974," citing an Omaha World-Herald piece the check could not open. Berkey's OWN official site does not claim it. It calls him "featured keyboardist with Mannheim Steamroller." When a man's own site gives him a smaller title than a third party does, the smaller title is the one to print. Used his wording. 2. "Over 50 years with Mannheim Steamroller" is cut. His own bio page says 38 years and the page is undated, so it cannot be turned into a current figure. Two sources, no agreement, no date. 3. "10 original Christmas albums" versus "11 original Christmas albums." THE TWO QUEUED COPIES OF THIS POST CONTRADICT EACH OTHER. fact_id a495219c47e95793 says 10 and this one says 11. That is the cleanest possible case for the drop rule. Neither number ships. 4. "more than 30 albums" is cut. No source found. 5. "over 300 classical pieces" is cut and replaced with his own site's figure, over 400 published titles, in his own site's words. His number, not ours, and it is bigger anyway. 6. "multiplatinum-selling" is cut. 7. "across every major idiom" is cut. That is a scope word and it needs its own source. WHAT SURVIVED: birth date and birthplace (May 24, 1942, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania), Juilliard, and the Huntingdon connection, which is the only part of this post the page actually cares about. SOURCING NOTE: the birth date and birthplace come from Wikipedia citing Pitcher, John, "New CD shows Berkey's range," Omaha World-Herald, 20 December 2009. Everything else traces to berkey.com, his own site. DUPLICATE: a495219c47e95793 is the same post with 10 Christmas albums instead of 11.
Checked 2026-08-01 · County history, independently fact checked
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