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Boston Globe
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
For flutists, Massachusetts is Mecca
Advertisement Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up A detail of an engraved lip plate in 14-karat gold at Powell Flutes in Maynard. David L Ryan/ Globe Staff These firms make flutes that range in price from a few thousand up to six figures. Their instruments are prized by classical soloists and orchestral players worldwide, as well as jazz musicians and even the occasional rock star such as Ian Anderson, founder of the 1970s band Jethro Tull. Anderson is partial to Powell flutes, and recommended them to amateur musician and astronaut Cady Coleman, who took a Powell along when she went up to the International Space Station in 2010. Advertisement Are these the world's finest flutes? It's not that simple, says Abigana. 'Western European classical music likes to think it's the be-all and the end-all, but there's a lot more to the story.' Related : The flute is probably the oldest of all musical instruments, with examples dating back at least 50,000 years. 'There are flutes in every culture in the world,' said Starting in the 17th century, European societies became obsessed with innovation in every sphere of life, including music. Pretty much every musical instrument was re-engineered, including flutes. Upgraded versions could play a greater variety of notes. They could play louder, to accommodate large concert halls in the days before microphones and amplifiers. And their control keys were redesigned to make them easier to play. Aleks Shtyrkov has worked over three decades with Powell Flutes. David L Ryan/ Globe Staff And of course, composers from Mozart to Duke Ellington wrote music tailored to the capabilities of the latest instruments. And if that's the kind of music you like, then Boston-made flutes are among the best in the world. The tradition began in 1888 when the principal flutist of the Boston Symphony Orchestra asked New Hampshire silversmiths George and William Haynes to make him a new wooden flute with metallic keys. The brothers had a knack for it. They moved to Boston and launched their flute-making business, migrating to the production of all-metal flutes in silver and gold. Advertisement Decades later, Kansas silversmith and flutist Verne Q. Powell made his own silver flute for use in recitals. One of the Haynes brothers was so impressed with its quality that he hired Powell and brought him to Boston in 1916. A decade later, Powell was running the Haynes factory, but in 1927, he struck out on his own and formed Powell Flutes. Many Powell veterans have launched their own local companies. Apprentice Bickford Brannen and his brother Robert launched Brannen Brothers in 1978. Another Powell employee, Lillian Burkart, founded a flute-making company in 1982. Di Zhao worked at Powell for 13 years before launching his company in 2006. Lev Levit apprenticed at Powell and Brannen Brothers before starting his own flute factory in 2012. There's a lot of advanced technology in a modern flute. Powell invented a way of bonding sterling silver and gold to create a lighter, less-expensive flute that still conveys the warm, rich sound of a 14-carat instrument. Many of the flute parts are contracted out to local machine shops. Here the parts are fabricated in computer-controlled milling machines to tolerances within a thousandth of an inch, much thinner than a human hair. The idea is to build an ideal flute, with performance as predictable as a Toyota transaxle. And yet, soulless precision is the last thing a musician wants. An employee icut the headjoint by hand at Powell Flutes in Maynard. David L Ryan/ Globe Staff 'We're not making toasters or phone cases. These are going to be the tools that someone's going to use to express their artistic vision,' said David Schipani, Haynes's director of product design and development. Advertisement It's during final assembly where Haynes's largely female workforce make the subtle adjustments to valves, pads, and keys that will give each flute the unique sound and feel that each customer seeks. 'All of that sensitivity and connection with the musician starts here on the benches,' Schipani said. A certain amount of precious metal is lost along the way. Schipani said that Haynes recaptures gold and silver dust worth hundreds of thousands of dollars by sweeping the floors, benches, and chairs. 'I'm surprised they let me wash my clothes at home,' he said. Each flute has two basic components — the flute body, and the headjoint, the part where you pucker up and blow. A good headjoint, according to Verne Powell is 90 percent of a good flute, and these smallish tubes can cost several thousand dollars each. Hilary Abigana, an award-winning flutist and sales manager, demonstrated the sound of a Powell Flute. David L Ryan/ Globe Staff Joy Roberts, director of quality management, has her own headjoint that she uses just for testing the new flutes. By using the same joint in every test, she can rely on what she's hearing. By the time Roberts tests the flutes, 'they are all very unique individuals,' she said, 'and the journey is always different for them to get from parts to a flute to a Haynes.' Down the hall from Roberts, Aiven O'Leary hones a new headjoint, using a bit of sandpaper glued to a stick. It's an odd use of her time, since O'Leary is Haynes' president. But she insists on doing the headjoints herself. 'I wouldn't be the president if I didn't work on this,' she said. Advertisement At Powell, 'we have six different headjoint cuts, Abigana said. 'They all sound incredibly different from each other. We want to make sure that our flutes can be as individual as the players who come to us.' And these flutes are designed to last for a lifetime and then some. 'We see Powell flutes from the 1930s that are still in excellent condition,' said Abigana. Hiawatha Bray can be reached at
Boston Globe
27-06-2025
- Business
- Boston Globe
84-game seasons, shorter contracts coming to NHL under new collective bargaining agreement
Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up Related : Advertisement The extension through 2030 provides the sport extended labor peace since the last lockout in 2012-13, which shortened that season to 48 games. Here is what is changing: Longer season Going from 82 to 84 games beginning in 2026-27 — making the season 1,344 total games — is expected to include a reduction in exhibition play, to four games apiece for the 32 teams. The additions would be played within divisions, evening out the schedule to ensure four showdowns each season between rivals like Toronto and Boston, Dallas and Colorado, and Washington and Pittsburgh. Currently, there is a rotation that has some division opponents facing off only three times a season. Advertisement That imbalance is coming to an end, and this is not the first time the NHL has had an 84-game season. The league experimented with that in 1992-93 and '93-94, when each team added a pair of neutral site games. BOSTON, MA - MAY 28, 2025: .Warrior Arena in Boston, Boston Bruins goaltender Jeremy Swayman returns after he led US to gold medal at worlds. (David L Ryan/Globe Staff ) SECTION: SPORTS David L. Ryan/Globe Staff Shorter contracts Since 2013, players have been able to re-sign with their own team for up to eight years and sign with another for up to seven. Under the new CBA, each would be reduced by a year, to seven for re-signing and six for changing teams. Top players, given the injury risks in the sport, have preferred the longest contracts possible. The same goes for general managers, eager to keep talent in the fold as long as possible. But with the salary cap getting its biggest increases season by season over the next three years, the thinking had already begun to change. Auston Matthews re-signed for only four years with Toronto last summer, and Connor McDavid could also opt for a short-term contract extension with Edmonton. Steven Stamkos and the Lightning were among the teams in recent years to take advantage of the salary cap rules — or lack thereof — in the playoffs. Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated Press Playoff cap Currently, teams with players on long-term injured reserve can exceed the salary cap by roughly the amount of the players' salaries until the playoffs begin. Several times over the past decade, Stanley Cup contenders have used LTIR to activate players at the start of or early in the playoffs after they missed some or all of the regular season. Florida did so with Matthew Tkachuk before winning the second of back-to-back titles, Vegas has done it with Mark Stone on multiple occasions, as has Tampa Bay with Nikita Kucherov and Chicago with Patrick Kane. Advertisement The rule has been criticized as an unfair loophole, a way to stockpile talent and then add even more for the postseason. After he and Carolina were eliminated by the Lightning in 2021, Dougie Hamilton quipped that the Hurricanes 'lost to a team that's $18 million over the cap.' Tampa Bay went back to back, and players wore T-shirts with that saying on it during their Cup celebration. That will no longer be possible, though it's not exactly clear how it will work.
Forbes
25-06-2025
- Forbes
The Karen Read Trial: How A Murder Case Sparked A Digital Uprising
Dedham, MA - June 17: Karen Read waves to her supporters outside of Norfolk Superior Court on June ... More 17, 2025. (Photo by David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images) When Karen Read entered a Massachusetts courtroom in 2022, she was a woman at risk of losing everything. Her life as a financial professional, adjunct lecturer, stepmother, and bride-to-be had taken a fateful turn when, in January 2022, she was accused of drunkenly hitting her fiancé, Boston Police officer John O'Keefe, with her SUV, resulting in his death. From the outset, this seemed like an open-and-shut case. It centered around a couple who reportedly had a volatile relationship, a night involving too much alcohol, resulting in a tragic accident, and a community left in shock. But over the course of the next three years, the Karen Read trial became a symbol of much more than one family or community's loss. Last week, she walked out of yet another Massachusetts courtroom acquitted on all charges except driving under the influence. This concluded a high stakes re-trial that garnered huge levels of public interest and repositioned Read from a defendant to a national symbol confronting alleged corruption, sexism, and highlighting the growing power of a digital battleground. The Karen Read Trial: A New Court of Public Opinion The court of public opinion is nothing new. However, what the Karen Read trial truly highlighted is how supercharged it has become by social media, with a growing number of independent voices now influencing how justice is narrated, and scrutinized. Heightened public interest can be a double-edged sword for women, who generally tend to attract more intense public scrutiny and attack online. Yet Karen Read became the face of a new type of trial by public opinion. Defying the typical approach where women tend to remain subdued and silent in the hope for public sympathy, Read was anything but. Instead, she decided from the early days just how this story would be told and, more importantly, by whom. This case revealed three major shifts in what we have come to expect from female plaintiffs in high-profile criminal cases: the rise of citizen-led journalism as defense strategy, the growing influence of social media in garnering support, and the virality of a female plaintiff who was determined to control her own narrative. Citizen Media and the Karen Read Trial: The Blogger Behind the Backlash In August of 2023, the District Attorney Michael Morrissey, prosecuting the case of Read, had a career first. He took an action that he shared was the first of its kind in his twelve-year tenure as DA. He issued a video statement calling for an immediate end to the harassment of witnesses in the murder prosecution of Karen Read, which he said "is baseless, and should be an outrage to any decent person, and needs to stop." The preceding events connect to the role of one man, Blogger Aidan Kearney, known online as Turtleboy, a Massachusetts-based author, podcaster, and former history teacher who is the face behind the blog TB Daily News. Kearney, who marks a rise in citizen-led journalism through his online blog and live streams, has taken a keen interest in Read's case, vlogging his own investigation and conclusion that Read was innocent in O'Keefe's death, which he believed instead was a corrupt cover-up by police officials and insiders to this judicial process. While Kearney's methods drew sharp criticism and led to his subsequent arrest, there is no denying the role he played in creating a public frenzy around this trial. A highly controversial figure, he became a symbol of what his supporters saw as a collective crusade for grassroots resistance and a much bigger battle for institutional accountability. Aidan kearney Turtleboy- Via The Atlantic Inside the Karen Read Trial: A Real-Time Defense Strategy For her part, Read was also no stranger to controversy. Unlike many female defendants who remain silent, from the early days of this investigation, Read took the mic. She gave interviews, engaged the press and more noticeably, unlike other infamous defendants subdued by scandal, women like Amanda Knox and Casey Anthony, who waited until after their acquittal to tell their side of the story, Read created a real-time counter-narrative. Most surprisingly, she participated in the production of a docuseries while facing trial, sharing her version of events to cast doubt on the prosecution's case. Reactions were divided, but for the most part she arguably was successful in reframing the conversation from defense to offense. Supporters cheer as the verdicts are read as she is acquitted on many of the charges against her on ... More June 18. (Staff Photo By Stuart Cahill/Boston Herald via Getty Images) The Karen Read Trial and the Gendered Lens of Guilt For those persuaded by her story, this case became about a lot more than the events of one snowy January night in Massachusetts. It became a fight centered on trust in institutions and what it truly means to be innocent until proven guilty. She argued that from the start, gender played a key role in how she was viewed and treated: a women portrayed as crazy, jealous, and too hysterical to know her own truth. This argument was compounded by the evidence of text messages between the lead investigator, Michael Proctor, and his colleagues. Conversations revealed an ongoing dialogue that was not only deeply insulting to Read, but morally offensive to women broadly. To women watching from the sidelines, this highlighted not just a significant lapse in protocol but a risk to all women who should receive a fair judicial process. And for a growing base of women supporting Read, they didn't just respond with anger; they organized. From Hashtags to Courtroom Rows: Women Rise Up Read's re-trial saw crowds of women arriving in matching T-shirts and sharing their thoughts live on social media. Vloggers dissected the trial daily, creating viral threads drawing increased national attention to this case. Karen Read didn't just break the norm of what we expect from female defendants. She became a catalyst for how women collectively confronted a system that seemed predisposed to disbelieve her. The Metamorphosis of Karen Read and the System Around Her Arguably, that is the bigger story here. The public metamorphosis of Read herself, who has become an unexpected poster girl for a very different archetype in the justice system. She is a woman who demonstrated what happens when you do not stay silent and instead redirect the spotlight back to the judicial system itself. However, she is not the only outlier in her case. This trial revealed a new type of digital avenger- the highly controversial but influential rise of citizen-led journalists like Aidan Kearney. And perhaps most notably, The Karen Read trial highlighted a collective surge of women advocates who, through the power of virality, can create a new form of reckoning in how women are heard, believed, and defended inside and outside of courtrooms.
Boston Globe
11-04-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
R.I. Supreme Court rules congregation can be evicted from Newport's Touro Synagogue, the nation's oldest synagogue
Advertisement 'Our review of the record reveals that the trial justice did not err in entering judgment in favor of Shearith Israel, granting it 'the right to take immediate possession of the [p]remises together with the appurtenances and paraphernalia belonging thereto in accordance with the 1903 and 1908 leases,'' reads the decision, penned by Chief Justice Paul A. Suttell. Get Rhode Map A weekday briefing from veteran Rhode Island reporters, focused on the things that matter most in the Ocean State. Enter Email Sign Up In a statement, Congregation Jeshuat Israel said it was 'deeply saddened' by the ruling, but added it 'remains committed to being the vibrant center of Jewish worship, culture, and community for generations to come.' NEWPORT, RI - 11/16/2023: xxritouro…..A closed gate at street level outside entrance of The Touro Synagogue which is the oldest standing synagogue in the US, and a symbol of religious freedom in America. It is open several days per week for tours, and more people than usual are visiting for this time of year, both jewish and non-jewish, to reflect given the violence in Israel/Gaza. Newport is also home to one of the first Jewish congregations in the country. (David L Ryan/Globe Staff ) SECTION: METRO David L. Ryan/Globe Staff 'This decision comes at a particularly emotional time, as we prepare to gather for Passover, a holiday that honors the Jewish people's enduring strength and liberation,' the statement said. 'While this ruling is a painful moment in our history, it does not shake our foundation.' Advertisement The synagogue has been the congregation's spiritual home for nearly 140 years. 'For nearly a century and a half, CJI has been at the heart of Jewish life in Newport,' Michael Pimental, the congregation's co-president, said in a statement. 'Our congregation is not defined by walls, but by the community we have built through shared faith, values, and connection. That spirit lives on.' In its own statement, Congregation Shearith Israel said it welcomed the court's decision, and added Congregation Ahavath Israel, of Newport, is now 'ready to step in to ensure a seamless transition of occupancy.' Congregation Ahavath Israel already has plans to hold services at the synagogue on Friday evening, and worshipers from all congregations are welcome, Dr. James Herstoff, the incoming congregation's secretary-treasurer and head of ritual, told the Globe. 'We are welcoming and hope that the rift can be overcome over time – [that] the bad feelings on some people's parts will be able to be soothed, and that is our desire,' Herstoff said in an interview. 'We hope and encourage that all the congregants in Congregation Jeshuat Israel will desire to continue praying in Touro Synagogue with us.' FOR USE WITH THIS STORY ONLY XXRITOURO NEWPORT, RI - 11/16/2023: Touro Synagogue is the oldest standing synagogue in the US, and a symbol of religious freedom in America. It is open several days per week for tours, and more people than usual are visiting for this time of year, both jewish and non-jewish, to reflect given the violence in Israel/Gaza. Newport is also home to one of the first Jewish congregations in the country. (David L Ryan/Globe Staff ) SECTION: METRO David L. Ryan/Globe Staff As Suttell acknowledged in the court's decision, the two congregations had quarrels over their interests in the property as far back as the early 1900s. In 1903, they ultimately entered into a five-year lease allowing Congregation Jeshuat Israel to be a tenant at the synagogue. A subsequent lease was signed in 1908, and when that agreement expired in 1913, Congregation Jeshuat Israel became a holdover tenant. In 1945, the two congregations entered into an agreement with the Secretary of the Interior to help preserve the synagogue and to help give it landmark status, according to court filings. Advertisement 'Sadly, Jeshuat Israel and Shearith Israel do not enjoy a harmonious relationship, leading to litigation in the federal courts seeking to resolve issues other than those which are before this Court,' Suttell wrote. 'Both parties have recognized, in their papers and through witness testimony at trial, that their relationship had 'deteriorated.'' Controversy erupted in 2012 when Congregation Jeshuat Israel In a letter to its congregants this week that it shared with the Globe, Congregation Shearith Israel said it went on to make 'strenuous and ongoing efforts to reconcile' that were ultimately unsuccessful. 'CJI continued to act in ways that Shearith Israel felt was not in the best interests of Touro Synagogue,' the letter said. 'This led us to pursue eviction.' NEWPORT, RI - 11/16/2023: Touro Synagogue is the oldest standing synagogue in the US, and a symbol of religious freedom in America. It is open several days per week for tours, and more people than usual are visiting for this time of year, both jewish and non-jewish, to reflect given the violence in Israel/Gaza. Newport is also home to one of the first Jewish congregations in the country. (David L Ryan/Globe Staff ) SECTION: METRO David L. Ryan/Globe Staff This week's Supreme Court decision upheld a September 2023 ruling from Superior Court Judge Maureen B. Keough that found an October 2022 tenant termination notice Congregation Shearith Israel sent to Congregation Jeshuat Israel was legally valid. Keough granted a stay of execution, however, allowing the congregation to remain at the synagogue, pending appeal of the case. Congregation Jeshuat Israel did appeal the decision to the state Supreme Court, arguing, in part, that the 1945 agreement was a modification of the 1908 lease and that Congregation Shearith Israel was required to consult with the Secretary of the Interior before removing the congregation, according to the decision. Advertisement Suttell wrote the court agreed with Keough. 'It is clear that these terms [of the 1945 agreement] seek to protect Touro Synagogue as a historic site and require collaboration among the parties before the Synagogue building or grounds are altered, but the terms do not reach back to modify any of the terms of the lease agreement,' Suttell wrote. Additionally, Suttell wrote the court saw 'no reason to disturb' Keough's findings regarding whether 'the elements required for ejectment were satisfied.' 'It is unfortunate that the circumstances arose that necessitated this,' Herstoff said Friday. 'I don't think anybody is happy that it was necessary to do this.' Paul Tobak, president of the incoming Congregation Ahavath Israel, said there is no celebrating the court decision. 'The only celebration is that we got closure,' he said. His congregation is now reaching out to Congregation Jeshuat Israel on an 'individual basis, encouraging them to come,' Tobak said. 'My hope is that, as it has always been, … that the community come together and put any kind of ill feelings behind them,' he said. Christopher Gavin can be reached at
