Dale Lewis, Usdan's Executive Director, To Step Down After 2015 Summer Season

Dale Lewis, the executive director of Usdan Center for the Creative and Performing Arts, has announced that 2015 will be his final season leading the highly regarded summer camp in Wheatley Heights.

In the fall, he will become head of the new Arts Reach Fund of Long Island Community Foundation. The fund will focus on critical issues in the arts and arts education.

Usdan¹s incoming executive director will be named this spring.

Lewis is largely synonymous with Usdan, providing opportunities in the arts for generations of campers who have studied music, dance, theater, the visual arts and more. Serving as the camp’s executive director since 1984, Lewis furthered the campers’ love of the arts by teaching them to be good audience members at daily performances by renowned artists and performers such as the Tokyo String Quartet, Emanuel Ax, the New York City Ballet, Jane Monheit – herself a Usdan alum – and more.

With a background as a performer, arts educator and administrator, Lewis was instrumental in developing Usdan Center’s educational and artistic programs, and for its community and financial footprints. During his years as executive director, Usdan’s curriculum expanded from 30 programs of study to 67, now serving more than 1,600 metropolitan area children in the summer.

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“I have had a unique opportunity to shape the culture of this great institution,” Lewis noted. “While I am proud of the new programs, buildings and educational initiatives born at Usdan, it is the accomplishments of our students that are most satisfying.”

Although Usdan¹s mission is to introduce all children to the arts based solely on an expression of interest, many alum, in addition to Monheit, who attended the camp under Lewis’ tenure, have gone on to professional careers in the arts, including Natalie Portman, Mariah Carey, jazz star Jane Monheit, Taylor Dane, Jackie Hoffman, Seth Rudetsky, Olivia Thirlby and members of major music and dance ensembles.

Lewis believes all children deserve access to great teaching and that study in the arts enriches the spirit and leads to the arts as a companion for life.

“Supporting their transformative experiences here are extraordinary leaders and donors, faculty and staff, and my team of superb administrators,” Lewis said. “Working together they will provide the vision and innovation to carry Usdan into an ever-greater future.”

In addition to expanding existing and introducing new programs, Lewis also implemented notable investments at Usdan, including the completion of capital campaigns to add new buildings at the facility, including a 1,000 seat amphitheater, a chess center that is used year-round for conferences and recitals, teaching studios and a discovery center.

Lewis understands first-hand the perspective of a young artist. He began his career as a cellist, with a Carnegie Recital Hall debut at the age of twelve as a winner of New York’s Violin Teachers Guild competition, followed by concerto appearances with professional and community orchestras in the 1960s. He is a graduate of the Oberlin College Conservatory of Music where he studied cello and conducting. From 1969 to 1976 Lewis was the cellist of the Alberg Trio. He joined Usdan’s staff in 1979 as assistant director, recommended by Dr. Jerrold Ross, a Usdan founder who also served as Lewis’ mentor during doctoral studies at New York University. After working under Founding Director Andrew McKinley, Lewis assumed the top leadership position when McKinley retired in 1983.

Image: Dale Lewis by Ann Watt

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