William (Bill) Moriarity, 87, a trumpeter and the seventh elected president of Local 802, died on April 29, 2025.

Mr. Moriarity joined Local 802 in 1966 and worked his way up the ranks in union leadership. He began by serving as a committee member of musicians who performed at the Roseland Ballroom, where he learned how to negotiate union contracts for the first time (“I found out I could do it,” he said.) He was then elected to the Trial Board and Executive Board before serving as treasurer, secretary, and finally president, a role he carried out from 1993 to 2003. Later, Mr. Moriarity served as a trustee on the AFM Pension Fund.

“I never even call myself a leader,” Mr. Moriarity once said in an interview. “I call myself an officer. I try to let the rank-and-file lead.”

Mr. Moriarity led two different Broadway negotiations and defended musicians against heavy attacks from the producers, winning contracts that sustained live music.

“A union should be helping workers. Almost everything flows from that,” said Mr. Moriarity

Bill Moriarity (at right) with Jack Gale in 2007 at the ceremony honoring their contributions to Local 802. The plaque is currently installed at 322 West 48th Street.

In 2007, four years after Mr. Moriarity had left office, he was honored (along with Jack Gale and John Glasel) with a plaque that still stands at Local 802’s headquarters celebrating him as a “visionary founder of our modern union.” At the dedication ceremony, former Local 802 Recording Vice President Bill Dennison called Mr. Moriarity a “real working class leader” who saw Local 802 as part of a bigger movement for social justice. His humility and ability to grasp the future will be part of his enduring legacy, said Dennison at the time.

“When I think of Bill Moriarity, what comes to mind is integrity,” said AFM President Tino Gagliardi, who served as president of Local 802 from 2010 to 2018 and again from 2022 to 2023. “He was a model to me of what effective and responsible union stewardship should be. It was Bill who set me on the trajectory that placed me at the helm of Local 802 and then the AFM. It was the things I learned from him that provided me with the tools to be an effective negotiator and president. I remember hearing from AFM delegates that Bill Moriarity was ‘the best international president we never had.’ He was by far one of the strongest local leaders in the AFM. He will be missed in so many ways.”

“I paid very close attention to then president Moriarity during the 2003 Broadway musicians’ strike,” remembers current Local 802 President Robert Suttmann. “The issues at stake were huge. Coincidentally, as in today’s theatre environment, musicians were threatened by technology. Particularly memorable was his poise and intelligent responses on an interview on PBS. He was an inspiration then, and still a personal role model today.”

“It was my very great pleasure to have served as financial vice president under the leadership of Bill Moriarity,” said Mary Landolfi, who also served as Local 802 president. “He was an upstanding and generous gentleman who always gave credit to others rather than taking it for himself and never stopped trying to better the lives of our members. He will be greatly missed.”

“For all of us who knew or worked with Bill, his passing is a great loss,” said former Local 802 President Sara Cutler. “He led 802 with intelligence and integrity and was a hero and a role model for those of us who came after him.”

“Bill was the first Local 802 president I worked for,” said Local 802 Communications Director Mikael Elsila, a 27-year veteran of the union. “He served with the utmost integrity and care for the members of Local 802. He was an excellent writer and loved contributing to Allegro, which he took very seriously. We were lucky to have him as president.”

Mr. Moriarity once said in an interview, “The secret to building a strong union is organizing, if you can find a way to do it. You try to make sure you have an inclusive process rather than an exclusive process. I do think you have to listen to other people and make sure that you don’t see them in a condescending or patronizing way.”

Mr. Moriarity’s survivors include his sons Billy (and Billy’s wife Donna) and Brian (and Brian’s wife Carolyn) and grandchildren Eric, Allison, Rebecca and Aidan. Mr. Moriarity’s wife Diane passed away in 2010.

Because Mr. Moriarity died as Allegro was going to press, we are still assembling tributes. We encourage you to submit your memories of Mr. Moriarity to allegro@local802afm.org. We’ll post follow-up tributes in a future issue or when more information becomes available. Memorial services are also being planned.