SEM & Steinway

By Erin St. John Kelly Director of Communications

SEM’s commitment to becoming a rare Steinway Select School, which began in 2019, has not wavered, despite our spring spent coping with the effects of Covid. Becoming one of a company of only 16 K-12 schools in the world will be a major differentiator when girls and their families are choosing a high school. Steinway & Sons is not only synonymous with quality pianos and music, it is synonymous with quality itself. What is also wonderful is that they are proud to count SEM as a partner, we’re on their website!

We are grateful to the reunion classes of 2019 for their gift of our first new Steinway piano which qualified us for the program. It has pride of place in the Gallery from where students can fill the school with music at lunchtime, after school, and on weekends.

The minimum number of new pianos we need in order to qualify for Select School status is three. Our ultimate goal is to have five new Steinway & Sons manufactured pianos at SEM. In the heart of our school, the Chapel, the grand piano is from 1917 and its soundboard, its heart, is cracked. In fact, every one of our 10 pianos at SEM has a cracked soundboard. We aim for two upright “practice” pianos - the one in the Atrium (cafeteria) where the current piano is used often by the girls, and we’d like to put an upright in the Performing Arts Center where a larger piano now stands (that larger model piano makes staging shows in-theround difficult, the actors’ entrances and exits must go around it). Finally, the piano in the music room is from 1910. It’s as old as our building and sadly, it is badly damaged.

To find out more about ways to support our SEM-Steinway initiative contact Director of Institutional Advancement Molly O. Greene '98: mgreene@buffaloseminary.org.

An Arts Faculty of Practicing Professionals

Our theatre teacher is active in the professional theatre community as a director and crew member. Our fine arts teacher is a cartoonist and artist who is regularly published in The New Yorker and exhibits in galleries. Our music teacher is a Grammy Award-nominated composer and musician who performs worldwide. Our digital art teacher is a professional photographer and graphic designer.

SEM students are taught and encouraged to stretch beyond themselves – they are prepared for the demands of the world they will encounter as women of business, art, science, academics, or service.

Being in the arts has taught me when and how to be a leader, to share my ideas respectfully, and to listen. Fiona Regan ‘20

Elisa Yi ‘18 participates in a violin master class in the SEM chapel.