When the owners of a generations-old family business in Chester, Vt., announced they were shutting down last year, a local couple took a leap and decided to buy the store. Their story is the next in our series about businesses that have started or substantially changed during the pandemic. At the back of the wood-paneled…

After shutting down his manufacturing plant and sending 2 million unsold face shields to sit in a warehouse, Bing Carbone found himself wondering what was next for his plastics company. His business had “an outstanding 2020,” pivoting from making high-grade plastic parts for the defense and medical industries to producing more than 30 million of…

Before the coronavirus pandemic shut down Broadway, Bill Whitaker drove every week from his home in Connecticut to New York City, where he performed in “Phantom of the Opera” as a bass trombonist. This was Whitaker’s main gig for 19 years, but he had many others. Throughout those years, he was a union member, and…

Today we meet someone who’s something of a barometer for the battered live music industry in Boston. His name is Fred Mudge and he’s been a piano technician, fulltime, for about three decades. “Three things throw a piano out of tune,” he explained. “Playing it. Temperature. And humidity.” On the day we spoke Mudge was…

The producer and musician International Show works out of a recording studio tucked at the back of a hidden storefront in Weymouth. It isn’t glamorous, but it has everything he needs: a computer, mixing console, recording booth and a little electronic keyboard that he plays when he wants to relax. This is the place where…

Chelsea-based singer Sonni Mai remembers her last real gig before the COVID-19 pandemic lock down in February of last year. “It was at Capone’s in Peabody,” she recalls in detail. “It was not as busy as it usually is — it was pretty dead. You know, sometimes we would get tips and stuff, but that…