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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December 28, 2020. You may know Sheku Kanneh-Mason, the young cellist who performed at the 2018 royal wedding, but did you know his six siblings also play…
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The holidays are here, and we'd like to share some of our favorite music of the season. Watch these YouTube videos of music selected by our hosts and…
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It was 202 years ago when "Silent Night" was first heard by Austrian villagers attending Christmas Eve mass in St. Nicholas Church in Oberndorf. How did…
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A 1962 record of holiday music by The Philadelphia Orchestra and the Temple University Concert choir "went gold" in 1963 and continues to be sold today.…
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Iman Habibi was one of several composers commissioned by The Philadelphia Orchestra as part of its 2020 celebration of Beethoven's 250th birthday. The…
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November 30, 2020. In his concerto for guitar and orchestra, Chris Brubeck pays homage to his father, the late jazz great Dave Brubeck. The pianist and…
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In WRTI's final broadcast of its PYO series this year, WRTI Host Kevin Gordon spoke with Music Director Louis Scaglione in an intermission feature, which…
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TIME IN with British Soprano Carolyn Sampson: Tadpoles, Family Trees and a BBC Recording of the YearEnglish concert soloist, recitalist, and opera star Carolyn Sampson was traveling when governments in Europe and the UK began shutting down in early 2020.…
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Antonin Dvorak wrote his Symphony No. 9, "From the New World," soon after arriving in America in 1893. A yearning melody from the second movement took on…
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TIME IN with Pianist Peter Dugan: Always Finding Joy, from Upper Darby to Host of NPR's From the TopPianist Peter Dugan was a teenager living in Upper Darby, when, in 2006, he was chosen to perform on From the Top, NPR's nationally syndicated radio…