Susan Lewis

Although it did not explicitly ban drinking, the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibited the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors. Ratified in 1919, it took effect in 1920. By the time of its repeal, 13 years later in 1933, prohibition had triggered major changes in the American social, political and economic landscape.  The National Constitution Center is now staging an exhibition about that era.

As Philadelphia’s Rodin Museum reopens, WRTI's Susan Lewis explores the life and work of the iconic French sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917).

As the National Constitution Center stages a major exhibition on Prohibition, WRTI's Susan Lewis looks at the early 20th-century ban on alcohol, and its consequences for American culture.

American Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition is at the National Constitution Center from October 19, 2012 to April 28, 2013.

Classical music is a complex art form, and learning an instrument well takes not only talent but many hours, days, and years of lessons and practice. While the talent necessary to play an orchestral instrument hasn’t changed much over the years, today, Internet and video technology are offering  new ways of teaching and learning an instrument, with the potential to connect large numbers of  students with some of the best musicians in the world.
 

Following in the footsteps of legends such as Leopold Stokwoski, Eugene Ormandy, and Riccardo Muti, Yannick Nezet-Seguin is set to conduct his inaugural concerts as music director of The Philadelphia Orchestra. On Thursday, October 18th, the opening-night concert features the music of Ravel, Brahms, and Strauss with soloist Renee Fleming, followed by performances of the Verdi Requiem on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Opening night concert information - October 18.

Simon Rattle, the British-born conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, is one of the best-known classical musicians alive. His influence shows up in all sorts of places: at the Metropolitan Opera, where musicians still speak of his presence there in reverent tones, and in West Philadelphia where his advocacy of Venezuela’s El Sistema helped inspire trumpeter Stanford Thompson to create Play On Philly, a music education program that touches hundreds of lives.

Nineteenth and early 20th-century American artist Winslow Homer painted civil war scenes, landscapes, and seascapes, but his tour de force was a close up of a dramatic rescue at sea. 

The Life Line, part of the American art collection at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, is the focus of a new exhibition that explores the artistic foundation and historical events that set the stage for this groundbreaking work.

When playwright August Wilson died in 2005, The New York Times writer Ben Brantley compared his writing to "the sweep of Shakespearean music," his plays "like grand opera rooted in the blues." Wilson won a host of awards, including two Pulitzer Prizes;  his magnum opus, now known as the Pittsburgh cycle, includes 10 plays, each set in a different decade of the 20th century, chronicling the lives of ordinary African Americans.

Pioneering 20th-century sculptor and furniture maker Wharton Esherick  lived and worked in Philadelphia and the surrounding countryside, where his onetime studio and home is now a museum.

WRTI’s Susan Lewis considers the life and influences of this artist who practiced a variety of artistic disciplines before achieving fame for his  curvilinear free-form sculpture.

Inspired by Edinburgh’s renowned Fringe Festival, Philadelphia’s version took root in 1997.  Over the next several weeks,  galleries, bars, and public plazas will be among the ordinary spaces turned into venues for experimental performing arts.  Some people are also transforming - stepping away from their day jobs and out of their comfort zones. 

WRTI’s Susan Lewis takes a broad look at the festival and a close up on how one Live Arts show is turning ordinary people into dancers.