Susan Lewis
Arts & Culture Senior ProducerAs senior producer of arts and culture, Susan writes and produces stories about music and the arts. She’s host and producer of WRTI’s TIME IN online interview series, and producer of The Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert series, to which she also contributes weekly intermission interviews. She’s also been a regular host of WRTI’s Live from the Performance Studio sessions.
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.
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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The Chestnut Street Singers were live from WRTI's Performance Studio in advance of their March 6th and 8th concerts celebrating the past and future of…
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Join us on Friday, February 21st at 12:10 PM when Flutist Robert Cart and pianist Regina DiMedio Marrazza preview selections from their upcoming…
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Members of Piffaro, The Renaissance Band are joined by musicians from the Newberry Consort—an ensemble called "Chicago's gift to early music" by the…
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February 17, 2020. Acclaimed by The Guardian as "one of the world's leading bel canto stars," tenor Lawrence Brownlee brings his extraordinary power,…
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A 2010 opera based on Moby-Dick has spawned an orchestral suite. As WRTI's Susan Lewis reports, this latest incarnation of the classic tale was fueled by…
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Pianist Lara Downes' playing has been praised as "luscious, moody, dreamy" (The New York Times) and "addicting" (The Huffington Post). She visited the…
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WRTI's Susan Lewis talks with Joe Bonjiovi, founder and executive director of the National Jazz Festival about why jazz is so important for young people.…
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A winner of Astral's 2016 National Auditions, violinist Katie Hyun has been praised for her "sensitivity and top shelf artistry" by Cleveland.com. In…
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In the 1920s, French classical composers were traveling to New York to hear jazz. Albert Barnes was going to Paris to buy paintings and African art, and…
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A dramatic look at the cultural contributions of 20th-century Philadelphia arts champions Albert Barnes and Leopold Stokowski finds remarkable…