Matt Berlin balances law and music careers with new album release

Boston Globe

29-04-2025

Berlin and Kweskin have teamed up yet again, to produce a new ensemble album, 'Doing Things Right,' under the name the Berlin Hall Saturday Night Review. (Berlin credits his grandfather, who ran a dance hall in Virginia as the album's inspiration.) The album came out last Friday, following release parties at
Club Passim
in Cambridge and the
Jalopy Theatre
in New York, on Jalopy's label. The two musicians bring together a number of longtime collaborators to create a lively mix of jazz, folk, blues, and swing.
Berlin grew up in a musical family in Cambridge, starting as a cello player at age 7. He talked his way into a regular big-band gig as a newly christened bass player in high school. Tendinitis derailed his dream of being a full-time musician so he followed his father's path into a legal career, first working with his dad
Jerry Berlin
at his small firm, and then joining Rubin and Rudman in 2001.
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He does see some overlap: In law and in music, he said, you have to be willing to engage with new material and people, and keep an open mind.
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When he tours, he does his legal work in hotel rooms or in the passenger seat of a vehicle heading to the next gig, and takes the occasional call to authorize a wire transfer during soundchecks.
'My friend calls me an adrenaline junkie,' Berlin said. 'It's very intense to play music at a high level [but] it's an intensity that I enjoy and I crave.'
And there's the added benefit of meeting people from all walks of life, while learning an American songbook that doubles as an audio alternative to a history book.
'It gives insight to all the different layers of American culture and experience,' Berlin added, 'that I wouldn't have standing here in my office looking out of a 15th story window.'
For Rivers, this deal is personal
Bob Rivers, CEO of Eastern Bank, poses for a portrait in his Boston office in 2020.
Blake Nissen/The Boston Globe
As
Eastern Bank
's top executive,
Bob Rivers
has engineered many acquisitions over the years.
This one, though, Rivers says, is personal: Eastern has reached a deal worth nearly $500 million in stock and cash to acquire
HarborOne Bank
, whose Brockton headquarters is a stone's throw from where Rivers grew up (Stoughton) and where he went to college (
Stonehill
, in Easton).
'I went into Brockton way more often than I would go to Boston,' said Rivers, Eastern's executive chair. 'To come back on this one ties a lot of things together from 40 years ago.'
Of course, that's not the reason Rivers is doing this deal. Acquiring HarborOne helps Eastern build market share in the Boston metro area as Rivers and his team seek to move ahead of
Santander
to become the region's third biggest bank after market leader
Bank of America
and runner up
Citizens Bank
. Eastern won't get there with this deal, but it's getting closer.
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While HarborOne is a much smaller bank, at roughly one-quarter of Eastern's size ($5.7 billion in assets versus $25 billion), HarborOne has a larger mortgage selling business than Eastern. And Eastern gets its first retail branches in Rhode Island.
Rivers and HarborOne chief executive
Joe Casey
stayed in touch over the years, and started talking about a merger a few months ago. They stuck with it despite the stock market's recent volatility. (Casey and one other HarborOne director will join Eastern's board as the deal closes, likely around the end of this year.)
Rivers started working on this deal around six months after Eastern completed its purchase of
Cambridge Trust ―
an unusually quick turnaround.
Rivers concedes he would have preferred to wait a little longer. But opportunities don't come up often in this region, even amid the flurry of M&A the local banking sector is experiencing. Rivers believed he needed to strike when he could.
'When you get that opportunity, you've got to do everything you can to make it happen,' Rivers said. 'Once they're gone, they're gone.'
Seeing green at UMass
As the federal government cuts back funds for university research and addressing climate change,
Marty Meehan
hopes the UMass system can pick up some of the slack.
In his annual 'State of the University' address,
University of Massachusetts
president focused on what UMass can do to help accelerate the Healey administration goals of ensuring this state flourishes as a hub for climate-tech innovation and economic development. During the roughly eight-minute speech, Meehan explained that he's asked chancellors at the five UMass campuses to develop economic development strategies that align with the state's climate-tech goals, including those subsidized in the Legislature's latest economic development bill.
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'UMass ... will be the engine that drives the state's economic ambitions, as we've been for 160 years,' Meehan said in the address.
Meehan talked about some specific efforts that are already underway: climate resiliency research at
UMass Boston
's Stone Living Lab, UMass Dartmouth's work on sustainable fisheries, and water treatment and purification research at
UMass Amherst
. He also mentioned the importance of global partnerships, singling out the Clean Energy & Environment Legacy Transition Initiative that
UMass Lowell
and
Boston University
are working on with university partners in Ireland, as well as UMass Boston chancellor
Marcelo Suárez-Orozco
's efforts with the Vatican Climate Summit last year.
'There's no question that the federal government is trying to take us back with regard to climate change,' Meehan said. '[But] I would argue that climate change is the existential threat of our time. ... Our goal is to position UMass to be the partner of choice for state government, the private sector in Massachusetts, and also globally.'
Learning leadership starts early
Jean Hynes, CEO of Wellington Management, pictured in 2020
David L. Ryan/Globe Staff
While
Jean Hynes
is now one of the most prominent women in the mutual fund industry, she credits at least some of her success to where she went to high school.
She rose up the ranks of
Wellington Management
over three decades at the Boston fund giant, to become the first woman to be named its CEO, in 2020. Along the way, she never forgot the lessons she learned at
Fontbonne Academy
, the all-girl Catholic school in Milton. And at a March 29 fundraiser at the
Four Points by Sheraton
hotel in Norwood, she helped headline an event that raised more than $400,000 for Fontbonne scholarships.
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'Whether it was the math team, or whether it was community service organizations, those kinds of things, they're just opportunities to have those small leadership moments,' Hynes said. 'It just gave me the confidence that you could be a leader, very early in my journey in life.'
Hynes was one of three Fontbonne alums to be honored at the gala, along with
Melissa Nelson
, chief midwife at
Mass. General Hospital
, and
Arielle Gaines
, a teacher at the
Match Community Day
school in Hyde Park.
The fund-raising gala drew some 400 people. Fontbonne previously held this event every 10 years but this one, recognizing the school's 70th anniversary, was such a success that the school will now make it an annual event. (In other years, the school would hold smaller fund-raising dinners.)
'When you're engaging with people and you care about what they're investing in, … that to me is the perfect role model for our 'servant leadership' that we teach here at Fontbonne,' said
Maura Spignesi
, Fontbonne's head of school. 'You're achieving things in your own life but how do you now turn around and do good in the world? I think Jean does good in the world, both in how she leads and how she gives back to the community.'
Jon Chesto can be reached at