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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Acoustic smashing has become one of singer Jacqui Naylor’s signature styles. WRTI’s Susan Lewis has more on Naylor, who learned jazz standards at her…
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A thriving classical music world involves not only composers and performers, but those who listen, and those who manage, connect, and promote the artists…
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One leader headed to our nation’s capital aims to bring people together - not through political speeches, but through music. WRTI's Susan Lewis has more…
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Quite a few classical composers have found artistic inspiration in one of the planet’s most important natural resources. WRTI’s Susan Lewis reports on…
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Opera Philadelphia is presenting the East Coast premiere of Jennifer Hidgon's first opera, Cold Mountain. As WRTI's Susan Lewis reports, the opera adds…
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Italian composer Alfredo Casella’s Symphony No 2 is a major work composed in 1910 that is little known today. As WRTI’s Susan Lewis reports, a…
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This month, in 1926, trumpet virtuoso, singer, and bandleader Louis Armstrong recorded the first jazz scat vocal, "Heebie Jeebies." WRTI’s Susan Lewis…
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WRTI's Philadelphia Orchestra in Concert broadcast on Sunday, February 7 at 1 pm features several works of a celebrated Russian composer, conductor and…
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In between rehearsals for the East Coast premiere of her opera, Cold Mountain, Pulitzer-winning composer Jennifer Higdon is preparing for another big…
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Conductors take different paths to the podium. WRTI’s Susan Lewis profiles one of today’s busy young conductors who learned from two of the best in the…