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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What’s a spiritatorio? ComposerHannibal Lokumbe coined the term to describe his recent oratorio, which reflects on science, spirituality, and the human… -
Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 9 was the last symphony the Austrian composer completed before he died. Philadelphia Orchestra Music Director Yannick… -
May 17, 2021. Recorded before the 2020 shutdown, and released with the end of the pandemic almost in sight, Hilary Hahn’s album Paris reminds us of the… -
Four Philadelphia Orchestra brass players routinely sit together in the back of the orchestra. But for a 2018 work by Jennifer Higdon, they all moved to… -
Unlocking the secrets in music is a joyful enterprise for pianist Helene Grimaud. WRTI’s Susan Lewis has more on Grimaud’s approach to music and life. On… -
May 3, 2021. The Jasper String Quartet and Jupiter String Quartet combine to express joyful personal connections in chamber music with pieces composed… -
Hollywood may have typecast the bassoon as comedic star, but Philadelphia Orchestra Principal Bassoon Daniel Matsukawa fills us in on the instrument’s… -
Music can be mysterious, even to those who spend their lives creating it. As WRTI’s Susan Lewis reports, the late composer Christopher Rouse pondered the… -
Premiered in late 2019, and digitally released in April, 2021, A Native Hill provides solace and reflection about our human place in the natural world.… -
April 19, 2021. The Grammy-winning Catalyst Quartet uncovers music and the stories of the people who wrote it in its new recording series, UNCOVERED. The…
