In the spotlight: Kathy Kucsan
July 7, 2009 by Jennie Dorris
Filed under A & E, In the Spotlight
It’s hard to imagine how many artists Kathy Kucsan has helped during her career.
She co-founded the Rocky Mountain Center for Musical Arts, a community school that makes music lessons affordable, and she started Integrity Arts, a consulting company helping artists find grants. For those in the performing arts, she’s been a valuable behind-the-scenes resource for the last 13 years.
Kucsan started as a performer herself. She landed her first orchestral job in Caracas, Venezuela, in a chamber orchestra. She soon learned that in many government-subsidized parts of Latin America, people were either “haves” or “have-nots.”
“We were stepping over homeless people on the way to the orchestra. I would think, ‘Why am I sitting in a chair and playing the oboe as I’m waking up to the things in the world?’” Kucsan says.
In 1995 Kucsan found herself in Boulder, admiring the national movement of settlement schools, which were growing schools of the arts that had the mission of making art affordable to everyone.
Using that model, in 1995, she and partner Peggy Bruns started the Rocky Mountain Center for Musical Arts, a nonprofit music school, which recently merged with and became the educational wing for the Colorado Music Festival. The two met while pursuing their Masters at University of Colorado-Boulder.
“We had 13 students on the first day, and we added nearly 100 students each year. We’ve been steady at 750 students for the past six to seven years,” Kucsan says.
Two years ago Kucsan stepped down her involvement with the center and started Integrity Arts, a business that provides consulting and grant writing to artists.
“It was time for me to move on from RMCMA. I was getting antsy, and realized the thing I liked the best was hunting for grants,” she says.
Integrity Arts has already cited success with more than 20 grants for its range of artists.
“The cool thing about being in the arts is that there’s nothing typical,” Kucsan says, citing that her clients have ranged from Boulder sculptors to the Back Door Theater in Nederland. “What I really love to do is take this piece of work off their plates and create a space for people to do their art.”
After we caught up with Kucsan about her work with Integrity Arts, we asked her the five questions we ask of all of our Front Range artists.
What’s your ultimate deal-breaker?
Kucsan: Lying. That would do it. Lie to me — bye bye.
What song would you be embarrassed of if people knew you had it on your iPod?
Kucsan: “Barbie Girl” by Aqua.
What’s your life’s motto?
Kucsan: I don’t have an actual phrase; it’s more of an energetic feeling. I think of kindness first.
What’s your daily beauty routine?
Kucsan: I would never forget my hair product, Stucco.
If you could have dinner with a famous artist, dead or alive, who would it be and what would you talk about?
Kucsan: Tracy Ullman. She’s an amazing actor comic and mimic. She also sings and dances. There’s something about her ability to impersonate people (of different ages, genders, races, ethnicities) in a spot-on way that utterly thrills and fascinates me. If I got to have dinner with her, I’d toss out a list of people I’d like to see her impersonate.
— By Jennie Dorris
