A native of Dravosburg, Pennsylvania,[1] Risher first studied music with William Wallace Gilchrist and Alexander Matthews.
[2] She attended the Pennsylvania College for Women, undertaking further studies at the New England Conservatory of Music; at the latter, her instructors included Adolph M. Foerster, Carl Stasny, George Whitfield Chadwick, and Leo Schulz.
[1] Risher's family moved to California in 1918, and she became the director of music at the Cumnock School for Girls in Los Angeles.
She also organized the Laguna Beach Little Symphony Orchestra, some of whose concerts she conducted, and chaired programming for the Society for the Advancement of American Music.
[4][5] A Mazurka Brilliante for violin and piano was recorded by Laura Kobayashi and Susan Keith Gray and released on Albany as well.