Susan Lewis

Philadelphia's annual two-part festival of experimental performing arts kicks off in venues around the city this week. While the wide open, unvetted Fringe Festival has nearly 150 works by mostly Philadelphia artists, the curated Live Arts Festival includes 16 works selected from the local, national and international scene, with shows coming from as far away as Australia and Japan.  

WRTI's Susan Lewis take you to the Philadelphia Museum of Art's exhibition that explores how the idea of utopia captivated the imaginations of early 20th-century artists. Visions of Arcadia runs through September 3rd.

Philadelphia’s Mütter Museum is not a typical tourist stop displaying  artwork, or artifacts of culture, history or science - although it has some of all of these. The museum is popularly known today for its human specimens of medical anomalies, such as the tallest skeleton in North America and its plaster cast of conjoined twins - but its mission extends beyond entertaining the curious public.   

Popular composer George Gershwin bridged the worlds of classical music and jazz. WRTI's Susan Lewis considers Gershwin and his musical legacy.

The Philadelphia-based chamber music ensemble Dolce Suono is profiled by WRTI's Susan Lewis.

As the National Collage Society presents its 28th annual juried exhibition at Ursinus College near Philadelphia, WRTI’s Susan Lewis discovers that there are still some rules for making collage, but the medium invites practitioners to go right ahead and break them.

As the Olympics in London get into full swing, WRTI's Susan Lewis talks with a featured player in the Cultural Olympiad: Sir Simon Rattle, music director of the Berlin Philharmonic. The world-renowned conductor shares his thoughts about the nexus between sports and music, his own path to the podium, and his relationship with Philadelphia.

Rattle conducted the London Philharmonic and the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra in performances featuring the UK premiere of Wynton Marsalis's Symphony No. 3 or "Swing Symphony" as the games began.

Earlier this week, Sir Simon Rattle conducted a series of concerts celebrating the opening of the 2012 London Olympics. Rattle conducted a very special performance of the London Symphony Orchestra as part of the opening ceremony, which featured Mr. Bean (British comedian Rowan Atkinson) as a comical, and less than enthusiastic, keyboard soloist.  

Rattle is as passionate about music as any athletic icon is about sports - about its intrinsic value and its ability to change lives.

One of the first public buildings to grace the Benjamin Franklin Parkway in 1929, the Rodin Museum recently reopened after a three-year renovation. WRTI's Susan Lewis looks at the role of the Rodin, then and now, in fulfilling a dream for the city's grand avenue.

Known to generations as the “dinosaur museum," The Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia is demonstrating that its activities have always extended far beyond paleontological displays.

WRTI's Susan Lewis takes us to the Academy, which is marking its bicentennial with a special exhibition.