Susan Lewis
Consulting ProducerSusan is a consulting producer for The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert series on WRTI, and contributes weekly intermission interviews with conductors and artists featured in the broadcasts.
In her more than 15 years at WRTI, Susan has interviewed a wide range of leading artists including conductors and composers: Yannick Nézet-Séguin, Simon Rattle, Wynton Marsalis, Marin Alsop, and Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla, Christoph Eshenbach, Hannibal Locumbe, Esa-Pekka Salonen, Jennifer Higdon, Donald Nally, John Adams, Valerie Coleman, Mason Bates; instrumentalists and vocalists: Yo-Yo Ma, Lang Lang, Itzak Perlman, Helene Grimaud, Sheku Kanneh-Mason, Sharon Isbin, Andre Watts, Mark O’Connor, Angel Blue, Lawrence Brownlee, Jason Vieaux, Sarah Chang, and groundbreaking ensembles, including Imani Winds, PRISM Quartet, LA Guitar Quartet, Eighth Blackbird, and The Crossing, as well as people from the world of literature, theater and fine arts, including architect Frank Gehry, actors Dule Hill, Anna Deveare Smith, and playwrights Terry Teachout and the late Terrence McNally.
She has authored many stories about music and the arts for WRTI, and produced and was host of WRTI’s TIME IN online interview series. She also hosted WRTI’s Live from the Performance Studio sessions.
Susan came to radio with a background in journalism, speechwriting, and law, which she practiced in New York City; she also taught entertainment law at Rutgers Law School in Camden. A former freelance writer and columnist for Philadelphia Magazine, she’s also the author of Reinventing Ourselves after Motherhood and a book of essays titled, What is a Kiss, Anyway?
She lives in suburban Philadelphia with her husband, goldendoodle, and whichever of her four grown kids pop in to visit.
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When can music composed for a film stand on its own? WRTI’s Susan Lewis reports on how John Williams’ suite from Close Encounters of the Third Kind… -
July 12, 2021. Classical guitarist Jason Vieaux, a Pat Metheny fan for years, plays a beautiful four-movement composition for solo guitar that the jazz… -
Composer Orlando Haddad, known especially for the original Brazilian jazz he performs with his musical and life partner Patricia King Haddad in their duo… -
Jennifer Higdon’s concerto, On a Wire, was inspired by images of birds, as well as the innovative versatility of the musicians of Eighth Blackbird, the… -
In 1925, George Gershwin was known for his popular songs, Broadway music, and his Rhapsody in Blue. As WRTI’s Susan Lewis reports, he then tackled another… -
For bass John T.K. Scherch, radio announcing became the perfect complement to his budding career as a classical singer. Now fulfilling both dreams, he’s… -
Bagpipes often play at police and firefighter funerals, but they also play at celebrations. And in Philadelphia, The Philadelphia Police and Fire Pipes &… -
Early works for solo viola were often written for violinists, who also happened to play viola. Today, that music, such as Berlioz's Harold in Italy, puts… -
The psychological thriller that inspired Alfred Hitchcock's 1964 film Marnie has been reborn in Nico Mulhy's opera, and has also spawned a new suite for… -
Pre-pandemic, Donald Nally was busy teaching and conducting exceptional singers in two cities 800 miles apart, taking regular flights between Chicago,…
