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The post New concert series hits the right notes in Nahant appeared first on 01907 The Magazine.
]]>After performing works by Grieg, Beethoven, and Schumann, Radlberger addressed the audience with exciting news.
“It is because of our shared love of music that I am thrilled to announce a new series that I am launching with my partners called ‘Celebrating the Arts,’” she said. “This is not a one-off endeavor, but an ongoing series designed to create live artistic experiences inspired by Nahant’s rich history and natural beauty.”
Radlberger, a native of Austria and a Nahant resident since 2011, explained that the vision is “to connect as a community, and embrace one another, through music and the performing arts. We aim to bring high-quality performances to multi-generations, to invite our audience to share in the transformative power of music and artistic expression.”
Though Nahant is the smallest municipality by area in Massachusetts, its rich cultural history is immense.
It is the birthplace of American tennis, the first game having been played in August of 1874. The country’s first yacht races were held off the peninsula’s rocky shores. Esteemed scientist Louis Agassiz, the “Father of Glaciology,” called Nahant home, studying fish fossils on the rocks at East Point. Six past presidents have visited Nahant, and Franklin D. Roosevelt’s son John married there at a high-profile “Wedding of the Season.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow summered in Nahant and wrote some of his best-known poetry here, including “Christmas Bells,” the precursor to the carol, “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day,” which made its debut in 1872.
And so, in a town replete with precedents, it may come as no surprise that “Celebrating the Arts” is not Nahant’s first concert series in recent memory. Longtime resident Jim Walsh launched the Ellingwood Chapel Concert Series in the mid-1990s while serving on the Nahant Cultural Council. In collaboration with the Nahant Historical Society, the series brought classical music, opera, dance, and chamber performances to Nahant audiences for 25 years.
“One memorably intimate performance was by pianist Maggie Cole and Boston Symphony Orchestra violinist Haldan Martinson,” Walsh recalled. “As the composition gently came to an end, it was accompanied by the clear, soft sound of weeping in the audience.”
After the pandemic, Walsh retired from the Cultural Council and discontinued the series.
Enter Radlberger.
She became a subscriber to the Ellingwood series soon after moving to Nahant and performed in the series within months. After studying violin in Austria and earning a master’s degree in Violin Pedagogy at the University of Vienna, she toured throughout Europe, Asia, and North Africa as a freelance violinist performing with orchestras, trios, and quartets.
Her love of classical music began in childhood.
“My parents believed learning an instrument was essential,” Radlberger said. “My four brothers and I each learned instruments and played music together. Sometimes my father took me to concerts as a small child, and I was hooked — the atmosphere, the electricity before a performance, the majestic sounds.”
At age 8, her first violin teacher instructed a group of students to play together.
Her first violin teacher gave her “the most precious gift. Barely able to move the bow into the correct position with my small hand, the teacher instructed our small group of 8-year-old students to play together,” she said.
“We made music,” she said. “It gave me chills. It felt magical and touched me deeply. Because of this first experience, I chose music as my profession.”
To say that music occupies Radlberger’s time is an understatement. Today, Radlberger co-founded the string quartet “Fin de Siecle,” serves as concertmaster for the Lowell Chamber Orchestra, and is founder of “The Healing Violin — The Alzheimer’s Project,” which brings music to people with severe memory loss and their loved ones.
Following the pandemic and the suspension of the Ellingwood series, Radlberger felt something was missing in Nahant.
“It became apparent to me that artistic beauty was missing in our little town. The shared love for the arts, the gatherings, the diverse artists who could bring an audience to their feet after a brilliant performance,” she said.
Supporters encouraged her to begin organizing performances, beginning with concerts in her home before moving events to Ellingwood Chapel and later the Serenity Room at the Community Center.
“The connection of live performances opens hearts,” she explained. “Especially in this time, where there is much division happening in the world, the need for connecting is greater than ever. And there is a great connection through the arts.”
Nahant’s new series, “Celebrating the Arts,” debuted May 9, with a performance by soprano Ute Gfrerer and pianist Leon Livshin titled “La Folie de l’Amour” (“The Madness of Love”).
All four concerts in the 2026 program feature Nahant musicians under the theme “Music Surrounds Us.”
Upcoming performances include “A Million Dreams,” featuring adult and children’s choirs, the Seaside Sirens and Seaside Stars. The concert will take place Aug. 22 at 7 p.m. at Town Hall and promises “a vibrant choral journey through the many faces of dreaming where hope, longing, imagination, and heartbreak find their voice in music across styles and stories.”
“The season promises to be fun and eclectic,” Radlberger noted.
Tickets are $30 for adults and $15 for students. Children 14 and under are free. RSVP to julie@nahanthistory.org or call 781-581-2727. Space is limited.
For more information on the “Celebrating the Arts” series, co-sponsored by the Nahant Historical Society, contact Katharina Radlberger at katharina@thehealingviolin.com.
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]]>The post Extra innings appeared first on 01907 The Magazine.
]]>But then again, there isn’t much about Katz’s path through baseball that fits the usual mold.
At 67 years old, Katz walked onto a professional baseball field as a starting pitcher in the Pecos League. Most players his age are long removed from the game. Katz hadn’t even started playing organized baseball until he was 45.
Growing up in Brookline in the 1960s, Katz spent his childhood riding the subway to Fenway Park whenever he could. He didn’t play Little League or high school baseball. What he loved was simply being around the game.
“I never even liked recess,” he said. “But I’d go to games whenever I could — Saturdays, Sundays, and night games when I was old enough.”
For decades, baseball stayed mostly in the stands. Then, at 45, Katz joined the Ponce de Leon baseball league in Fort Myers, Florida, and started attending camps staffed by former major league coaches. What began as a hobby gradually became more serious.
Around the same time, he began writing biographies for the Society of American Baseball Research, documenting the lives of professional players, many of them career minor leaguers who spent years chasing opportunities that seldom arrived.
Those stories stayed with him.
“One of the things I learned … is the incredible intensity and determination that they brought to the field and they brought to their pursuit of baseball,” Katz said. “Hearing these stories over and over again, never letting obstacles get in their way … it just really inspired me.”
Eventually, Katz decided he wanted his own chance to play professionally.
After more than a year of phone calls and networking, he found an opportunity with the Pecos League, an independent professional league. He joined the White Sands Pupfish in his 60s and made his professional debut.
It lasted two batters. Katz failed to record an out, leaving him with a less-than-satisfactory stat line.
“I didn’t want to retire from professional baseball with an infinite ERA,” he said.
So he kept going.
In 2023, at 67 years old, Katz joined the Austin Weirdos. Before heading to Texas, he asked former minor leaguer and fellow coach at Manchester-Essex, BJ Weed, if he could pitch in the North Shore League against players in their 20s as preparation. Katz threw 2 ⅔ scoreless innings and said the outing gave him confidence heading into the season.
“When I went out to Alpine, Texas, in 2023 with the Austin Weirdos, I walked out on that mound, and I felt like I belonged,” Katz said.
He pitched five innings in his first game with the Weirdos, recording 12 outs against professional hitters and becoming one of the oldest players to start a professional baseball game. The final score mattered less to him than the fact that he had stayed on the mound and gotten some outs.
After his playing days, Katz transitioned into coaching in the Pecos League with the North Platte 80s, helping lead the team to a 27-win season and a playoff appearance. He said the experience was shaped as much by the relationships with players and staff as the baseball itself.
“My goal was to become a successful coach,” Katz said. “I knew it was going to be a challenge, but we ended up having a winning season and getting into the second round of the playoffs. We made it.”
For Katz, coaching professionally had become the new dream. Not just wearing the uniform, or riding the bus, or being able to say he had done it, but helping build something over the course of a season alongside players who were keeping their own baseball dreams alive.
He recalled a friend asking him early in that North Platte 80s season what it felt like to finally be living his dream. At the time, Katz wasn’t sure how to answer.
“A lot of times, people think you’ve lived your dream when you start it,” he said. “I didn’t feel like I had accomplished anything until I drove home from Garden City after our last game.”
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]]>Over time, the weather has dulled the memory of sacrifice. Still, one Eagle Scout, Adrian LaPorte, set out to restore the cannon, and in doing so, he restored a community’s connection to the veterans it honors.
“World War I is such an underappreciated and forgotten war. But these are people from our town, and I thought it was super powerful to be able to do the project for them,” LaPorte said.
LaPorte has been in Scouting for more than 10 years, starting as a Cub Scout in elementary school. He rose to the rank of Eagle Scout — the highest rank in Scouting — just before his 18th birthday.
As a part of the requirements for becoming an Eagle Scout, LaPorte was required to complete a service project known as the Eagle Project.
“It’s this big, daunting thing that you know about for years, and once you get there, it’s essentially the culmination of all your Scouting skills,” he said.
LaPorte added that Eagle Scout candidates do not undertake their projects alone and can call upon assistance from their troop and adult leaders for assistance.
“If you need help, you reach out to the younger scouts. You have the adult leaders to help you. It’s more just that you have the confidence to agree to a project, that you are okay with it being in your hands, but you’re not alone. You just take all of that Scouting experience and apply it,” he said.
After extensive planning, LaPortre set out to begin working on restoring the cannon, which took an estimated 50 hours over two months to complete.
Restoration work on the cannon included replacing its wheels and applying new coats of primer and paint.
The cannon is a memorial to 12 of Swampscott’s fallen. While working on the cannon, in conjunction with the historical society, LaPorte said they discovered two additional names to add to the commemorative plaque.
LaPorte said during the project, he learned the “value of persistence and sticking with something. Sometimes it’s not the most appealing, or cool thing … It’s just sticking with it, even if it may not be initially the most appealing thing.”
He added, “What the motivating factor is, it’s just when you create a relationship with someone through service. Whether that’s remembering the name of an older person from maybe the Historical Society or the town administrator, it’s just another connection, and it’s another relationship that you form. So, you’re not only taking on the completion of a project, and you’re only getting something done, you’re leaving with more human connection.”
LaPorte’s efforts were recognized by the Select Board, where they “had actually given me the floor, which is an honor, just to talk about my project and the process behind it, and (discuss) how the Eagle project works. And they actually gave me a commemoration plaque, and what I liked was they essentially showed off the troop and basically ‘these are the next in line to do projects for the town,’” he said.
LaPorte added, “It felt, honestly, incredible to be recognized. That’s not why I initially did the project, but it was definitely nice to know that people were affected in a way where they were able to see our troop as a community resource.”
LaPorte will graduate at the end of this school year and will attend the Virginia Military Institute, with a four-year army commitment.
LaPorte’s father, David, who has served as his Scoutmaster, said, “I have watched Adrian grow through Scouting since I was his den leader back in 2014, all the way through his Eagle Scout journey. It has been wonderful to see his confidence grow, along with his interest in serving others. His cannon restoration project was a major undertaking, requiring care, coordination, and attention to detail, and reflects his commitment to service, history, and Swampscott. I am incredibly proud of him, both as his Scoutmaster and as his dad.”
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]]>Lisa McDonnell never lost it.
For her, roller skating isn’t just a lifelong passion. It’s something so deeply woven into her identity that she can hardly remember a time before it.
“I started when I was 4,” McDonnell, 70, said before correcting herself. “Maybe sooner than that.”
It’s an offhand remark, but it’s also the thesis of her life. She was born into a family where rinks were as important as kitchens and bathrooms, where lessons happened “before school and after the public session,” and where movement to music became the core of her childhood.
“My folks were really, really involved,” she said.
Her father, Ray, “a big wig,” as McDonnell described him, ran leagues and coached at the highest levels — “he was head of all the pros in the country in the artistic” style, “had world champions and trained the world team in Brazil,” and was the vice president of the Roller Skating Rink Operators Association — and her mother, Vernie, even graced the pages of Skate magazine in 1951.
“They would call from all over the country to take (lessons) from my parents,” McDonnell said, describing the students who traveled far to learn the routines her mother would create on the kitchen floor. From those routines came championships: “My father had the most national champions in the country.”
Her whole family skated. Three of them turned pro: McDonnell, her brother Buddy, and her sister Jill.
Turning pro back then meant getting paid to teach. The rules have since shifted, as instructors can now also compete. The meaning of that step for Lisa was clear: Skating was both vocation and euphoria.
If her upbringing gave her a foundation, McDonnell’s own choices built a life that still looks, unmistakably, like happiness in motion.
“I’ve just been really lucky and healthy,” she said, but luck doesn’t set the records or guarantee podiums; practice does.
Since 2021, McDonnell has skated in 10 marathons, and she has won all except two for her age group.
She spoke of them with gratitude and wonder: long distances that feel like celebrations of what a well-trained body and a vibrant heart can do together. McDonnell is a gold medalist in artistic roller skating and a gold medalist in roller blading.
She was also the first person in the nation to earn a gold medal for international dance, a feat she achieved as an elementary-schooler in 1974.
Joy is the through-line of her story. She described the Boston Marathon midnight skate — the annual pre-marathon roll with approximately 125 fellow skaters and bikers — with excitement. She remembered the long, three-hour pushes on blades, the pedal of camaraderie and competition, and the streets that made her feel alive.
And her ambitions haven’t cooled. Today, McDonnell hopes to be an ambassador for the sport, with dreams of spearheading a marathon “in this area.” Specifically, she noted that Cambridge Memorial Drive is closed on Sundays, and she envisions being able to skate down a smooth blacktop street here in Massachusetts.
Additionally, she’s now chasing ultramarathon milestones. McDonnell skated a marathon in Miami, Florida, ultimately finishing with 82 miles completed, but she was not able to receive a medal.
“I have to go up to 100 miles. They want you to do 200 miles in 24 hours, so I’m just trying to get up to the hundreds,” she said casually. “Next year, hopefully I’ll have a medal there.”
Her sights are also set on earning a podium finish at this September’s marathon in Duluth, Minnesota, where she earned her most recent gold medal in September 2025.
Idén a V4 országokkal összefogásban megvalósuló kezdeményezés célja volt bemutatni a fogyatékossággal élő gyermekek, és családjuk integrációjának fontosságát, valamint erősíteni a hazai és nemzetközi szervezetek közötti együttműködést. Az esemény fontos üzenetet hordozott magában, miszerint az élet nem lehet más és kirekesztő azok számára sem, akik bármilyen fogyatékossággal élnek közöttünk. A rendezvény támogatói: a Visegrád Fund, a Visegrádi Csoport magyar elnöksége alkalmából a Külgazdasági és Külügyminisztérium, a Várkert Bazár és a Magyar Turisztikai Ügynökség voltak.
Idén a V4 országokkal összefogásban megvalósuló kezdeményezés célja volt bemutatni a fogyatékossággal élő gyermekek, és családjuk integrációjának fontosságát, valamint erősíteni a hazai és nemzetközi szervezetek közötti együttműködést. Az esemény fontos üzenetet hordozott magában, miszerint az élet nem lehet más és kirekesztő azok számára sem, akik bármilyen fogyatékossággal élnek közöttünk. A rendezvény támogatói: a Visegrád Fund, a Visegrádi Csoport magyar elnöksége alkalmából a Külgazdasági és Külügyminisztérium, a Várkert Bazár és a Magyar Turisztikai Ügynökség voltak.
