Alumni Gazette Arts Leader the arts are part of everyday life, says Nancy Uscher ’72e. as the new president of Seattle’s Cornish College of the arts, she works to keep it that way. By Karen McCally ’02 (PhD) she felt, especially having spent the previ- would go ‘bump bump bump bump.’ He ous year at the Royal College of Music in said, ‘You have to start without a conduc- Nancy Uscher ’72E says she’s had a cou- London, an experience she describes as tor. You just have to remember the pulse ple of epiphanies during her career, and “glorious.” and start it.’” the first was at Eastman. It was 1972, the “Then I remember this incredible ex- “I’ve thought about this many times,” year of her graduation and also the school’s perience,” she continues. The concert fea- Uscher says today, and the lesson she draws 50th anniversary, a celebration that ran tured a premier of Partita for Harpsichord from it is that leaders can be drawn from the course of the 1971–72 academic year and Orchestra, a piece written especially for anywhere. Even the sixth chair. So, she tells and culminated with a performance by the the occasion by Polish composer Krzysztof young artists: “Be ready.” Eastman Philharmonia at New York City’s Penderecki. Inaugurated in October as the new pres- Carnegie Hall. “We’d been rehearsing, and I see that I ident of Seattle’s Cornish College of the Uscher, a violist in the Philharmonia, was alone begin the piece for the entire orches- Arts, Uscher says the experience guides her told she’d play sixth chair. tra. As the sixth chair.” approach to leadership. “Everyone can be a “I thought I was going to be disregard- Uscher describes how Penderecki would leader in his or her own way. I really believe ed almost,” she says, recalling the letdown approach her and sing the rhythm. “He that leadership should come from different 44 ROCHESTER REVIEW November–December 2011 StepheN BraShear/ap ImageS for ROCHESTER REVIEW 5_RochRev_Nov2011_Gazette.indd 44 10/28/11 5:08 PM Alumni GAzette sectors, and I don’t like micromanagement.” “Everyone can be a “Some of the faculty were pretty straight Uscher has herself come from many about what they were doing. Their attitude different sectors of the arts world. After leader in his or her own was, we’re doing composing, we’re playing, graduating from Eastman, she pursued way. I really believe and the rest of this stuff”—such as Uscher’s scholarly and performance paths simulta- activities at the center—“is just sort of neously, pursuing a doctorate in music at that leadership should weird. Nancy has a broad vision of the arts.” New York University and advanced study come from different Indeed, Uscher says if there’s one thing in viola at Juilliard. A series of guest teach- she wants to communicate to young art- ing assignments and residencies took her sectors, and I don’t like ists, it’s that “they have a huge role in our around the world. And for six years, she micromanagement.” world.” And lest anyone think that’s mere was coprincipal violist in the Jerusalem platitude, Uscher has an illustration of ex- Symphony Orchestra. actly what she means—her second epipha- She returned to the United States in 1984, ing visibility in the Seattle arts community ny, which occurred while she was in New eventually focusing on scholarship and ac- and beyond. Mexico. ademic leadership, working her way up to With these changes, Uscher says, “Now She was on a town hall tour, in which the associate provost of academic affairs at the we’re in a position to really fulfill our new president of the university and other University of New Mexico, then provost of promise.” leaders ventured far from the flagship Al- the California Institute of the Arts (or, Ca- Paul Nathanson, who’s the executive buquerque campus into the mostly rural lArts), before being tapped as president of director of the National Senior Citizens state, to see how the University could meet Cornish. In 1999, she returned to Eastman Law Center and helped Uscher establish the needs of the state’s far-flung communi- and delivered a talk, “The Artist’s Leader- ship Challenge: Defining Career Opportu- nity for a Changing World,” as part of the Arts Leadership guest speaker series. Uscher says Cornish offers “a very un- usual model.” It was founded almost a cen- tury ago by Seattle pianist and educator Nellie Cornish, who wanted her students to experience the “interrelatedness” of all the arts. In 1977, the school became an accred- ited college, offering bachelor’s degrees in visual arts, design, theater, music, dance, and performance production. With the ex- ception of only two arts colleges she can think of—her previous employer, CalArts, and Philadelphia’s University of the Arts— Uscher notes that colleges of the arts are ei- ther colleges of the visual arts or colleges of the performing arts. “It changes the context in which you learn,” she says, adding that at CalArts, the tendency of visual artists to articulate the concepts behind their work encouraged her a Center for the Arts in Society when they ties. In one of the towns, a young university to do the same as a musician. were both at the University of New Mexi- doctor who had been offered a job to be- In the 1930s, the Cornish faculty includ- co, thinks she’s well poised for the role. He come that town’s only physician stood up ed the dancer Martha Graham and was recalls her success in designing innovative and said, according to Uscher’s recollec- the place where the avant-garde composer programs to bring arts into the community, tion: “You’ve offered me a really high salary, John Cage and the dancer and choreogra- and in finding funders to help them thrive. and I thank you, but I can’t come here, be- pher Merce Cunningham met one another “She’ll be able to push an agenda that cause my daughter can’t take ballet lessons, and began their lifelong collaboration and shows the interconnectedness of the arts, and I can’t go to a museum, and I can’t go to partnership. and of the arts in society,” he says. In the the theater and have my ideas challenged.” Nonetheless, the school floundered for music department at New Mexico, he adds, It was a powerful illustration to Uscher decades following Cornish’s retirement as of the centrality of arts to thriving president, and its accreditation as a col- u USCHERED IN: Violist Uscher (opposite) communities. lege in the 1970s failed to revive it. In the was inaugurated as president of Cornish “This is not separate,” she says, referring past decade, however, the college has ex- College of the Arts this fall, a celebration to the arts, and to her life’s work in helping perienced a notable turnaround, securing whose guests included Seattle Mayor Mike to bring them to as many places and people a move downtown, the integration and im- McGinn (above, right) and John Gordon Hill, as she can. “It’s integrated into the way peo- provement of physical facilities, and grow- the chair of Cornish’s board of trustees. ple are thinking about their lives.”r StepheN BraShear/ap ImageS for ROCHESTER REVIEW November–December 2011 ROCHESTER REVIEW 45 5_RochRev_Nov2011_Gazette.indd 45 10/28/11 5:08 PM.