Steinway Sundays

Steinway Sunday is moving to ZOOM for the final performance of Season II:
Tuesday, February 16, 2021 at 7:00pm

Ticket holders for previously postponed performances will receive an email with an invitation to the ZOOM link;
others may purchase tickets below using our PayPal link.
PLEASE INDICATE YOUR EMAIL WHEN ORDERING.

  Information coming soon on Season III! 

Steinway Sundays provide a glorious and joyous event series to support our programs and ministries. From its beginning, our church has supported vibrant musical performance. Generations of church members and church friends have sung in our choir for our Sunday services and for other special community events under the expert leadership of Wallace Van Lier, Paul Homer (who retired after 50 years in July 2019), and now Andrew Van Varick. The Sunday service anthems encompass classical, contemporary, spiritual, and popular faith-inspired selections. Accompaniment and instrumental selections are performed on a sensational Skinner organ. Community recitals are regularly heard in our Parlor.

Central Park’s hosting of Krista Seddon’s second season of Steinway Sundays continues and broadens this rich musical tradition and commitment. In Season I, scores of people were introduced in our beautiful Parlor to this unique series of piano jazz performance and detailed historic and personal commentary. Krista was a great friend of, and collaborator with, Marian McPartland, whose Piano Jazz series was the longest running series on National Public Radio.

Season II, Impressionism in Jazz, promises to be another thrilling musical opportunity with seven performance/lecture events by Krista resuming October 18, 2020 at 2:00PM. Central Park is proud to further integrate with the Buffalo and WNY community through this series, as we also host each week a rich and deep collection of community helping activities. Clara’s Closet, housed in our church basement for over 20 years, has been the primary source of free clothing for new immigrants, especially those joining our community through local refugee resettlement agencies. Many groups supportive of people with substance abuse problems meet here. Our church is a welcoming, inclusive congregation. In addition to Steinway Sundays, we hope you will participate in our other church programs, as well as Sunday church services at 10:30 AM.​

Krista Seddon
Pianist, Composer, Lecturer
Learn more

​Central Park has the honor of hosting Steinway artist, Krista Seddon, an accomplished pianist, composer, and lecturer. Her current lecture performance tour, Impressionism In Jazz, explores the dynamic cross-pollination among jazz and modern classical artists George Gershwin, Claude Debussy, Maurice Ravel, Duke Ellington, Marian McPartland, Miles Davis, Bill Evans, and others. The resulting combustion of sound and inspiration changed the world of music forever and reverberates to this day.

Concert Schedule via ZOOM link 

• February 16th, 2021​

Steinway Sunday is moving to ZOOM for the final performance of Season II:
Tuesday, February 16, 2021 at 7:00pm
Ticket holders for postponed performances will receive
an email with an invitation to the ZOOM link;
others may purchase tickets below using our PayPal link.
PLEASE INDICATE YOUR EMAIL WHEN ORDERING.

​Our church is a welcoming, inclusive congregation. In addition to Steinway Sundays, we hope you will come to our Sunday church services at 10:30 am. Please visit our Facebook page and YouTube channel to check out other happenings at Central Park Church. 

​Please join us for Steinway Sundays, Season II

Impressionism in Jazz

Ticket cost per concert is $35 each.
Package of 7 tickets is $30 each for a total purchase price of $210. More than 1 ticket can be used at a time.

Purchase Tickets HERE

Important: Please indicate the concert(s) you will be attending in the "Add a note" area in PayPal. Thank you! 

Tickets may be purchased the day of the concert prior to 2:00 PM or in advance by PayPal or mail.

Checks payable to Central Park UMC may be mailed to Central Park UMC, 216 Beard Ave, Buffalo, NY 14214. Please provide a note indicating the concert dates you plan to attend and write "Steinway Sunday" in the memo field. Also include the email address you'd like your ZOOM invitation sent to. Thank you!!

Prepaid tickets will be awaiting you at the sign-in table the day of the event before the concert begins.

Steinway Sunday Concerts

September 29, 2019, 2:00PM Central Park Complex Parlor
When Ravel Came to Harlem 
“At first glance, George Gershwin and Maurice Ravel might seem to occupy two different musical worlds, yet they both shared a passion for jazz,” said Louise Burton, Classical Lite.  In 1928, Ravel toured America.  The jazz clubs of Harlem would leave a lasting impression on him and his music.  Ravel urged Americans to take jazz seriously:  “Personally, I find jazz most interesting:  The rhythms, the way the melodies are handled.  I have heard some of George Gershwin’s works and find them most intriguing.” Join us as we step into this time in America. Hear the fascinating stories and incredible music of some of the giants of classical music and jazz who inspired one another in ways that changed the musical landscape forever. 

October 20, 2019, 2:00PM Central Park Complex Parlor
Chopin, the Impressionist
Frederick Chopin’s music epitomized the romantic ideal of the 19th Century.  Yet, Chopin pushed the boundaries that would eventually lead to the Impressionist movement in music.  When you think of Impressionism—the use of light—mixing and blending of tonal colors—these are the elements that laid the foundation for Debussy’s quest for a new sound. It was not a one-way street.  The modern classical composers were inspired by jazz and the jazz composers were inspired by the Impressionists. Krista will show us what that sounds like.  Be prepared for a concert like no other.​

November 10, 2019, 2:00PM Central Park Complex Parlor
The Season of Peace: Bach to Morricone 
Musicians across time have created special music to celebrate the Season of Peace.  They transport us from our busy lives and stir up memories and emotions that collapse time and space.  Music is like an index system to the times of our lives.  A song can take us to a moment in time where we remember what we were wearing, the scent of a flower or tree, every detail and somehow all of that is encapsulated in a single song.  Krista will treat us to some of the most gorgeous music of the Season of Peace—from Chestnuts Roasting to Gabriel’s Oboe.  Come join us.

February 23, 2020, 2:00PM Central Park Complex Parlor
Kind of Blue: Davis, Evans, and Debussy
A musical composition is a sound painting.  In “Kind of Blue,” we will learn how both classical and jazz composers work their magic with tonal colors, movement, and light.  “I love music passionately, and because I love it, I try to free it from barren traditions that stifle it.  It is a free art gushing forth, an open-air art, boundless as the elements, the wind, the sky, the sea. It must never be shut in and become an academic art,” Claude Debussy.  

October 18, 2020, 2:00PM Central Park Complex Sanctuary
Gershwin’s Americanization of European Music
Classical music is European in origin. Around the turn of the century, European immigrants fertilized American popular and symphonic music. In 1924, George Gershwin brought jazz into the concert hall with Rhapsody in Blue.  At the same time, Aaron Copland, Darius Milhaud, and the classical modernists were hybridizing their compositions with elements of jazz.  Krista will paint a picture of the Americanization of European music with sounds from Gershwin to Bernstein.

January 12th, 2021, 7:00PM via ZOOM
Nights in the Gardens of Sound: Exotic Influences in Jazz
“At first glance, George Gershwin and Maurice Ravel might seem to occupy two different musical worlds, yet they both shared a passion for jazz,” said Louise Burton, Classical Lite.  In 1928, Ravel toured America.  The jazz clubs of Harlem would leave a lasting impression on him and his music.  Ravel urged Americans to take jazz seriously:  “Personally, I find jazz most interesting:  The rhythms, the way the melodies are handled.  I have heard some of George Gershwin’s works and find them most intriguing.” Join us as we step into this time in America. Hear the fascinating stories and incredible music of some of the giants of classical music and jazz who inspired one another in ways that changed the musical landscape forever. 

February 16th, 2021, 7:00PM via ZOOM
The State Department Tours: Jazz & Diplomacy
“America’s secret weapon is a blue note in a minor key,” proclaimed the New York Times in 1956.  The Jazz Ambassadors Program, also known as the State Department Tours, started out as an experiment in cultural diplomacy at the height of the Cold War era.  Jazz was a symbol of freedom and democracy.  The USA sent musicians like Duke Ellington and Dave Brubeck behind the Iron Curtain.  In Poland, audiences were used to Soviet-approved culture like ballet and opera.  After the Soviet takeover following World War II, Jazz was forbidden from the airwaves. Brubeck’s performances were the first opportunity for Pols to hear jazz played live.  Come and hear the stories of these remarkable ambassadors and the music that represented the American dream.