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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As the Barnes Foundation begins construction on its new home on the Ben Franklin Parkway, we take a virtual tour of the new building with its…
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Jim Cotter speaks with Dirk Brosse, the newly appointed music director of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia.Susan Lewis visits Friend or Faux, an…
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Two pivotal figures in history - British naturalist Charles Darwin, and American President Abraham Lincoln - were born an ocean apart, on the same day in…
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As part of WRTI's "A Day at The Opera," Jim Cotter speaks with Opera Company of Philadelphia Artistic Director Robert Driver about National Opera Week. It…
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David Patrick Stearns looks ahead to an Academy of Vocal Arts production of Verdi's Falstaff with the legendary Met Opera stage director Tito Capobianco…
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Jim Cotter speaks with Richard Zettler, the co-curator of Iraq's Ancient Past: Rediscovering Ur's Royal Cemetery, a new exhibition opening on October 25th…
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Jim Cotter speaks with The Philadelphia Orchestra's Principal Bassoon Daniel Matsukawa. He's the soloist this week for performances of Mozart's Bassoon…
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Susan Lewis considers the art of Jun Kaneko, whose costumes and sets are featured in Madama Butterfly, the Opera Company of Philadelphia's latest…
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Jim Cotter speaks with Allison Vulgamore. The Philadelphia Orchestra's newly appointed president and CEO is scheduled to begin in her new post no later…
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As The Philadelphia Orchestra opens its new season we speak with Chief Conductor Charles Dutoit about the music he's conducting this week.Susan Lewis…