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Sense of Place: Meet the man soundtracking game day at Fenway Park

Fenway Park
Corwin Wickersham
/
WXPN
Fenway Park

At 112 years old, Fenway Park is the oldest Major League Baseball stadium in the U.S. While the Boston Red Sox are the main attraction, there's another performance happening on game day.

For our Sense of Place: Boston series, we sat down with Josh Kantor, the organist at Fenway Park since 2003.

Nestled in a corner of the stadium's luxury clubhouse, Kantor plays his double-decker electric organ. He has a perfect view of the action on the field — which he needs to seamlessly weave music into the flow of the game.

Kantor plays the organ in Fenway's Park's Aura Pavilion, overlooking the field.
Corwin Wickersham / WXPN
/
WXPN
Kantor plays the organ in Fenway's Park's Aura Pavilion, overlooking the field.

"It goes a long way if you can anticipate when there's going to be a pinch hitter, see a double play unfolding, or recognize an infield fly rule or you know when a pitching change is about to happen. All of those little things that come from watching a lot of baseball," he says.

Kantor explains how he tackles the unpredictability of gameday, how he auditioned for the job, and how he handles song requests from the crowd.

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Miguel Perez. Our senior producer is Kimberly Junod and our engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.

Copyright 2025 XPN

Raina Douris, an award-winning radio personality from Toronto, Ontario, comes to World Cafe from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), where she was host and writer for the daily live, national morning program Mornings on CBC Music. She was also involved with Canada's highest music honors: hosting the Polaris Music Prize Gala from 2017 to 2019, as well as serving on the jury for both that award and the Juno Awards. Douris has also served as guest host and interviewer for various CBC Music and CBC Radio programs, and red carpet host and interviewer for the Juno Awards and Canadian Country Music Association Awards, as well as a panelist for such renowned CBC programs as Metro Morning, q and CBC News.
Miguel Perez
Miguel Perez is a radio producer for NPR's World Cafe, based out of WXPN in Philadelphia. Before that, he covered arts, music and culture for KERA in Dallas. He reported on everything from the rise of NFTs in the music industry to the enduring significance of gay and lesbian bars to the LGBTQ community in North Texas.