St. Cecilia Pray for Us - A Musical Collaboration Unites America's Michael Moriarty and Chicago's Dan Robinson

Let us pray. O Eternal God, who gave us, in the person of Saint Cecilia, a powerful protectress, grant that after having faithfully
passed our days, like herself, in innocence and holiness, we may one day attain the land of beatitude, where in concert with her, we
may praise you and bless you forevermore in eternity. Amen.

Two great musicians are working on the prayed for premier of an original work. Michael Moriarty*, celebrated actor, musician, composer and defender of unborn children has written a string quartet - musical presentation that usually consists of two violinists, a violist and a cellist. The work from the time of Haydn has four movements. Dan Robinson**, director of the St. Cecilia Choir of St. John Cantius, has taken Mr. Moriarty's work, transcribed the manuscript and played it through to determine that it should be presented in public.

Michael Moriarty, most known as a stage, screen and television actor, symphony for strings was first performed in St. Louis and again at the New York City. Of this work performed as part of the Bachanalia Festival at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Manhattan,CAROLINE STOESSINGER, the cathedral's artistic director said,
"Bach said he wrote music for the entertainment of the soul. Michael Moriarty is an entertainer who writes in a contemporary idiom, influenced by jazz and highlighted with memories of 18th-century counterpoint."


I am working to scare up some funding ( a modest $ 7,000-$8,000) in order to secure a venue, pay musicians for rehearsals and the concert. During my post-Leo hours, I am hitting up possible patrons or a solid corporate citizen (Bank or Business) in order to help this collaboration between two talented men some funding.

If you love music and you appreciate the labors of talented people, let's pray to the Catholic Muse of Music - St. Cecilia. Not only that, if you have any ideas about helping to bring this work to life here in Chicago - leave a comment. Thank you!

Everybody!(repeat after each line) Pray for us. Saint Cecilia,

Saint Cecilia, wise virgin,(Pray for us. Saint Cecilia, & etc.)

Saint Cecilia, whose heart burned with the fire of divine love,
Saint Cecilia, apostle by your zeal and charity,
Saint Cecilia, who converted your spouse and procured for him the crown of martyrdom,
Saint Cecilia, who by your pleadings moved the hearts of pagans, and brought them into the true Church,
Saint Cecilia, who did unceasingly see your guardian angel by your side,
Saint Cecilia, who mingled your voice with the celestial harmonies of the virgins,
Saint Cecilia, who by your melodious accents celebrated the praises of Jesus,
Saint Cecilia, illustrious martyr of Jesus Christ,
Saint Cecilia, who during three days suffered most excruciating torments,
Saint Cecilia, consolation of the afflicted,
Saint Cecilia, protectress of all who invoke you,
Saint Cecilia, patroness of holy canticles,
Saint Cecilia, special patroness and advocate of all singers, musicians, authors, and students,

*

Michael Moriarty's Music
New CD
[5-7-00] A Voice in the Wilderness (working title) -- Michael will be in the recording studio soon!

Great Find:
An album, "The Highest Standards" from the mid-80s contains a song, "You'll Never Walk Alone" featuring Michael playing the harmonica.

Production Company: Plug Records
Producer: David Lahm.

Michael Moriarty's Jazz CDs
Reaching Out
Sweet 'n Gritty
The Michael Moriarty Quintet Live at Fat Tuesday's April 12, 1992


The New York Times has called Michael Moriarty "a jazz pianist of considerable skill."

Michael Moriarty's Classical Tape
The Music Of Michael Moriarty
Symphony For String Orchestra, conducted by Michael Moriarty
Psalm For Solo Violin, Nina Beilina - Violinist
The Kaufman Symphony For Chamber Orchestra
Simplicity
A CD with William Feasley, guitar & Vladimir Lande, oboe
From a review:
"The little-explored combination of oboe and guitar has managed to find a
small but unique repertory for itself. The sharp, dark overtones of this kind of
ensemble work best with lyrical modern music, as in Ibert's dramatic Entr'acte,
Karl Pilss's lovely neo-classic Sonatine, and a serious, ruminative piece (Simplicity)
by Michael Moriarty (yes, the actor!)..."

**

St. Cecilia Choir and Sine Nomine Ensemble
Daniel V. Robinson, Director

In addition to serving as one of the directors of the Sine Nomine and St. Ceclia Choirs at St. John Cantius, Daniel Robinson is music director of the Great Lakes Dredge and Philharmonic Society in Chicago. He has also guest-conducted the a cappella ensemble Bella Voce. He received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College and graduate degrees in music from Stanford University. He studied conducting with Robert Shaw, Clayton Krehbiel, John Ferris, Howard Swan, Weston Noble, and Richard Rosewall. He was founder and music director of Basically Bach. Previous church choir work includes stints with the Harvard University Choir, the Harvard University Summer Choir, the First Unitarian Church in Danvers, MA, and the Stanford Memorial Church Choir.

Michael Moriarty in Full - Read This Brilliant Analysis of Music, Faith and the Progressive Culture of Death

Michael Moriarty has a written an important essay. Read this.

The Haunted Heaven: Chapter Twenty Seven: Old Notes In A New WayBy Michael Moriarty
web posted December 1, 2011

Leonard Bernstein again seems to have entered my memoir as a musical guide for this most revolutionizing corner of my life. His lectures on modern music, now blocked by Koch Entertainment, this one in particular, defines "composers that have something to say". In America you increasingly pay for any education that might be offered on the internet.

With his customary brilliance, Bernstein reveals how a final diatonic, major chord, orchestrated as Stravinsky does in his Symphony of Psalms, can even sound "new".

Next, I'm watching Bernstein put Bachian muscle and balance into the execution of a Bach orchestral work.

Now, the St. Matthew Passion, as Bernstein himself says, "writing music was religion for J. S. Bach'.

"His godliness shines through all his music, first to last."

Bernstein's own divine genius as a teacher, as a composer, as a conductor?

It is beyond indisputable.

Alright.

Follow my reasoning, my deduction. If one looks at the political forces and "themes" that run and increasingly clash? Cacophony? Or modern music?

Bernstein might say, "Both!"

In that monosyllabic declaration lies Bernstein's infuriating equivocations politically. What might he be thinking now, were he alive? Would he, for one, be defending Roe v Wade?

Of course, as the only "civilized thing to do!"

Hmmm … and since Protestants, Progressive Protestants such as the Clintons and the Obamas actually promote abortion, Bach, being a Protestant child of Luther's Reformation, might agree, mightn't he?

There has always been a war between artistic genius and sanity. The confines of sanity, however, begin with "thou shalt not murder". Wander "out of that box" and you either have lunacy or just pure evil.

Crime and sin for the sake of crime and sin … until, of course, the thrill of crime and sin for the sake of crime and sin is gone.\ Then crime and sin would continue for no other joy than the pure abandon of evil. That is not lunacy, that is Evil. Evil's pure and conscious intent is the utter destruction of Good. That, of course, would mean the end of God.

Progressive "Reason" would inevitably necessitate the end of religion.

The end of God.

Eventually.

Not that the Progressives like the Clintons wouldn't lie to the faithful. They would lie and already have lied, as they say, "Big Time!" The Devil's Lobby, I call it.

C. S. Lewis, an Anglican of all things, wrote a great deal about The Devil in The Screwtape Letters and was later re-immortalized in the 1993 film, Shadowlands.

Catholic writers, of which I consider James Joyce, of course, one of, if not the greatest – the greatest, that is, if you don't consider Shakespeare a Catholic (many do) – have a profoundly more complex and subtler relationship with The Devil. The Church has truly split hairs about the depth of Hell involved with each transgression.

Forgiveness, of course, for any of the sinners is always possible, depending, of course, upon the sincerity of the sinner.

How did I get here in a chapter entitled "Old Notes In A New Way"?

There are few existing and major "old notes" that are older than the Catholic Church. The preceding Greek and Latin cultures, of course, haunt us in the same way they haunt the Catholic Church. The Catholic church, however, will be known eventually as the creation that saved the human race by her unswerving stand against abortion.

What is haunting me now is why a video accompanying a January, 2011 article, The Ox-Bow Generation, didn't work for quite some time. Yet it works now, months later. The Hanging of an innocent man is, indeed, an abortion.

The Fierce Faction For Abortion, and that is the only name I could label it with at this point, has massive influence obviously.

At the same time, this is the second day of the Arizona shooting in Tucson and Sarah Palin is still being targeted, ostensibly for her "target" symbolism.

No. It is for her stand against abortion. No one more fully represents pro-life than Sarah Palin.

Now, with Palin out of the 2012 Presidential race, it is Herman Cain who has been "forced out", not, as the press say, because of his marital past, but because of his unmitigated stand against abortion. Such a position is an assault against all "modern women"!

This is an example of The Bipartisan Progressives using gossip and marital secrets as propaganda in an "old way".

"Using old propaganda tools in an old way."

Michelle Malkin's article The progressive "climate of hate:" An illustrated primer, 2000-2010 lists, with her column's telescopic memory, the ten years of hate engendered by the fallaciously "hate-hating" Left.

The Left is well-known for serving up its vengeance cold.

Proud of it.

Glenn Beck, while on television, was doing his best to warn the Right against violence of any kind but righteous indignation can be tranquilized just so long. Perhaps that is why he avoided the issue of abortion as best he could. He was rather pushed into one episode dealing with the horrors of infanticide. Though Beck eventually proved too inflammatory and expensive for Fox Network, even he knew the hot potato that abortion has always proven to be. I don't follow his radio show so I have no idea how concerned he's been about Roe v Wade's spiritual destruction of the American soul.

However, 37 years of legalized murder could very well amount to 89 years of legalized slavery. We know how America and Americans could endure such inhumanity for just so long and then …

Ending legalized slavery is an "old note" for America.

Ending legalized abortion, with the hindsight we have about slavery, can be handled legislatively and at a much slower pace than the five years of Civil War.

Something, however, must be done now!

Why?

The American soul and her "inalienable right to life" have been destroyed by Roe v Wade.

As I have said one thousand times, the Golden Rule does not read, "Do unto gestating infants what you would not have wanted done unto your own gestating infancy."

Devoid of the Golden Rule, the American people's silence before the murder of Roe v Wade seems to be begging for an even colder indifference to human life out of the present, Far Left American government.

How does one resist a one hundred year-old Progressive Movement with profoundly international support and resources?

The Catholic Church.

An old note to be played in a new way.

Michael Moriarty is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actor who starred in the landmark television series Law and Order from 1990 to 1994. His recent film and TV credits include The Yellow Wallpaper, 12 Hours to Live, Santa Baby and Deadly Skies. Contact Michael at rainbowfamily2008@yahoo.com.

Chicago in Michael Moriarty's Meditations & The Genius of Steve Allen

The guy can act, write, compose and tickle the 88s. Michael Moriarty is in the process of writing a series of prose reflections and this is the eighth rendering.

I have been blessed to know some really talented and good people in my 58 years of stomping on the terra. Michael Moriarty is as complex a moral man as the other Chicago rooted genius, actor, musician, comic, writer, composer and television pioneer Steve Allen, who was kicked out of Mount Carmel High School in his freshman year thanks to singer/actor and classmate Richard Kiley. Steve Allen was related to the Donahues, Murphys, Regans and Quinlans of the south side of Chicago and often returned to the old neighborhood even when he was at the height of fame as founder of the Tonight Show and played Hammond Organ concerts at the Franklin House on south Western Avenue*.

Michael Moriarty's grandfather George Moriarty was a baseball professional and contemporary of Tyrus Cobb, Buck Weaver, Eddie Collins and Jiggs Donahue who played for both the Cubs and The White Sox, before becoming an icon for the Detroit Tigers.
George Moriarty was also a musician and composer, but nowhere near as deeply talented as his grandson Michael. I like to think that Chicago and especially the south side of Chicago - the Stockyards and beyond - had much to do with the evolution of genius in families Billy Allen and Bella Montrose to Steve Allen and George Moriarty to Michael.

In the Eighth edition of Moriarty's Haunted Heaven prose scatting, we consider eternity.


The Haunted Heaven: Chapter Eight: The Theater of the Mysterious Same By Michael Moriarty
web posted July 18, 2011

As one hovers above the first and one of the most defining moments of a life, patience is the order of not only the day but the essence of eternity.

Eternity is one factor, however, that people can measure their lives by.

The infinity of the Universe and the eternity of Time?

These are the precepts upon which I now measure my life, both its relative insignificance but its spiritual importance as well.

Oh, I know, Stephen Hawking, whom I have never had the privilege to meet, might dispute the infinity of the Universe, and then again, since he has admitted to making mistakes himself, he eventually – because he is now an eternal factor of the universe – he eventually might change his mind again.

He might not dispute the infinity of the Universe.

If he is even slightly a pantheist, he might be willing to accept the Universe in its entirety as God Itself.

If, however, the Universe is infinite, then God is ultimately and infinitely incomprehensible.

"Not if it is just more of the same, Michael!"

I'm sure that metaphysically "It" is just "more of the same". However, the "same" is so infinite within "Itself" that It, Itself, demands to be capitalized.

The God of Same.

If we know that God looks in wonder upon Himself, then the "Same" is as bottomless a mystery as Life itself has proven to be for millenniums.

Then again, Stephen Hawking, as well as some of his certainties, might be exposed as hoaxes.

Global Warming, chapter two: Science as Inevitably Political Propaganda.

Therein lies the mystery!

Perhaps the Devil, at times, can put even God Himself in doubt, into anxiety.

Does God then call upon another God for reassurance?

No.

This is God The Father and whatever doubts He might have?

The Doubts must come from one question: what is He to do with His own creation, which in this case is the Devil?

Evil in all its secret and manifest forms, a fact that God Himself created.

The Devil Himself as a blessing in disguise, as it is the very necessitation of Human Free Will.

That makes sense to me.

I'm now listening to a playback of my Seeds, the title for my own, little, musical inspirations, melodic and harmonic thoughts that … well … might very well fit themselves together into a masterpiece?!

The Seeds themselves, at this point in musical history, are nothing new. It is the order in which they are placed and developed that will determine whether or not they are the seeds for a work of art or the distracted pastimes of a wannabe.

Ah, ego mania! The bane of all exceptional creativity!!

One must be patient, particularly with one's own shortcomings.

I look at myself metaphorically, feel and see the considerable amount of damage that Life and I have done to myself, but, then again, I look at it as God's own work of art.

The Devil had a hand, that is for certain. Must we think of God and the Devil as Rogers and Hammerstein?!

The division between my responsibilities and Life's gets blurred very quickly when Progressive Psychology becomes involved. So involved that Good and Evil, even High and Low become a relative matter.

That is when Madness sets in and Evil becomes the Master to destroy all Masterpieces.

What is Progressivism?

"Anything but the Same!"

"Damn the Same!!" cry the Progressives.

Just now, I came to a possible format – and I only say possible format – for my symphonic series: the first movement always being an Overture of sorts, there to introduce the audience to the themes of the coming movements. Oh I would love to wait and wait, as Brahms did before he unleashed his highest symphonic achievement, his First Symphony, but I'm 70 years old!

"On, don't go back!" as the great English director, Sir Tyrone Guthrie would order us to do.

We poor but proud players of the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis.

This poor but proud composer soldiers on.

What theater am I working for now?

The Theater of the Mysterious Same!

Old songs but eternally new settings.

Those who know the old songs best?

They lead!

We follow.

The goal?

Our destination?

Heaven!

If you are really serious about your life, why settle for anything less?

Michael Moriarty is a Golden Globe and Emmy Award-winning actor who starred in the landmark television series Law and 4Order from 1990 to 1994. His recent film and TV credits include The Yellow Wallpaper, 12 Hours to Live, Santa Baby and Deadly Skies. Contact Michael at rainbowfamily2008@yahoo.com.

I remember a top rated loud mouth FM radio personality, as they were termed, horse-laughing the mention of Steve Allen, in the early 1990's. His side-kick buzzed and hooted slight regard for the man who won Emmys for Network and Public TV and Grammys for some of his 5,000 songs, comic genius, artistry at the piano and prodigious literary output. Hell, he had the drive-time slot!



* Both Moriarty and Steve Allen are criticized for their defense of eternal truths:

Michael Moriarty--like Jon Voight before him--turns Right.

It's a sort of ritual for certain aging male celebrities to publicly retreat into social and/or poltical conservatism. Steve Allen, in his last years, became a cranky crusader against what he considered "filth" in entertainment. The late Ron Silver (once involved with the left-to-moderate Creative Coalition) became vocal about his rightist beliefs after 9/11. Jon Voight, who won an Oscar for playing an anti-Vietnam War paraplegic (inspired by Ron Kovic) in COMING HOME, now can be found opnionating on Fox News. And don't get me started on former comedian Dennis Miller.

Michael Moriarty has now come to the proverbial fork in the road--and has turned Right. Here are links to an interview and a Moriarty-penned article for Andrew Breitbart's showbiz-liberalism-bashing site BIG HOLLYWOOD.

http://poetry-arts-confidential.blogspot.com/2009/12/michael-moriarty-like-jon-voight-before.html

April 5, 2011 - Happy Birthday to Michael Moriarty - Actor, Musician, Essayist and American

Happy Birthday to Michael Moriarty! This Chicago-rooted American actor, jazz musician, essayist and patriot is a thoughtful critic of American folly and powerful voice for the unborn. I am very proud to correspond with this wonderful man of principle, wit and courage. I first witnessed this man's talents at the Chicago Theatre in 1973, when he starred along with Robert De Niro in the poetic baseball film Bang the Drum Slowly. Mr. Moriarty portrayed a self-interested pitcher who restored his soul by caring for a dying catcher whose career had been notable only for his being the butt of jokes, pranks and ridicule for his team mates. At the end of the film Moriarty narrates a closing sentiment that is one of most heart-wrenching epiphanies in film - " From here on in, I rag nobody."

Michael Moriarty (born April 5, 1941 in Detroit, Michigan) is an Emmy winning American actor. Tall and lanky, this 6'4" actor is known most for his role as Assistant District Attorney Benjamin Stone on the long running TV series Law & Order. He attended the University of Detroit Roman Catholic High School, and then matriculated at Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire in 1963, where he was a theatre major.

After he received his degree, he left for London, where he enrolled in the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art, after receiving a Fulbright Scholarship.

In 1973, Moriarty was cast to play the egocentric Henry Wiggen in Bang the Drum Slowly, a film about friendship between two unlikely baseball teammates (the second being Robert De Niro, a slow thinking catcher who becomes terminally ill). Moriarty had a strong baseball background on which to draw for the role, as his grandfather George Moriarty had been a third baseman, umpire and manager in the major leagues for nearly 40 years.

In 1973, Moriarty starred in a TV movie adaptation of Tennessee Williams' The Glass Menagerie with Katharine Hepburn. Coincidentally, the film also featured Sam Waterston (who replaced Moriarty as the Executive Assistant District Attorney on Law & Order in 1994.) Moriarty's role in Menagerie won him an Emmy Award for Best Supporting Actor and Supporting Actor of the Year (see ).

Moriarty's career on the screen was slow to develop, while his theater career was flourishing. He starred as a Nazi bureaucrat who degenerates into a coldblooded murderer in the miniseries Holocaust (which earned him another Emmy). Through the 1980s, Moriarty starred in such Larry Cohen movies as Q, The Stuff, It's Alive 3, and A Return to Salem's Lot, as well as Clint Eastwood's Pale Rider and Hanoi Hilton.

From 1990 to 1994, he starred as Ben Stone on Law & Order. He ended up leaving the show in 1994, alleging that his departure was a result of his threatening a lawsuit against then-Attorney General Janet Reno, who had cited Law & Order as offensively violent. He moved to Canada, declaring himself a political exile, and lived for a time in Halifax and Toronto before settling in Vancouver. Recent projects he has acted in include Courage Under Fire, Along Came a Spider, Shiloh, Emily of New Moon and James Dean, for which he won his third Emmy.

Moriarty today lives in British Columbia, where he still acts and has become politically active, describing himself as a "centrist", which will prove questionable (see http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/articles/1105/1105eugenics.htm]]) to the reader of Enter Stage Right or MMUUUHP (Michael Moriarty Unofficial, Unauthorized, Unsanctioned Home Page).

Moriarty has recently announced his intention to run for President of the United States in 2008. He also has been a frequent contributor of numerous political columns to the ESR (Enter Stage Right) on-line Journal of Conservativism.

He has a website, the allegedly unauthorized MMUUUHP, and his recent blogs there and on ESR contain scathing denunciations of Bill Clinton, Thanaticism, abortion, embryonic stem cell research, anti-Catholicism, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, George W. Bush, both major U.S. political parties, Halliburton, the College of Cardinals, and most of Catholic theology, although he states that he had a Jesuit Catholic upbringing.
[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Michael Moriarty ]

Michael Moriarty is also a fine jazz pianist and a cat of quality:

He sees, why Nature plants in man alone
Hope of known bliss, and faith in bliss unknown:
(Nature, whose dictates to no other kind
Are given in vain, but what they seek they find)
Wise is her present; she connects in this
His greatest virtue with his greatest bliss;
At once his own bright prospect to be blest,
And strongest motive to assist the rest.
Self-love thus pushed to social, to divine,
Gives thee to make thy neighbour’s blessing thine.
Is this too little for the boundless heart?
Extend it, let thy enemies have part:
Grasp the whole worlds of reason, life, and sense,
In one close system of benevolence:
Happier as kinder, in whate’er degree,
And height of bliss but height of charity.
God loves from whole to parts: but human soul
Must rise from individual to the whole.
Self-love but serves the virtuous mind to wake,
As the small pebble stirs the peaceful lake!
The centre moved, a circle straight succeeds,
Another still, and still another spreads;
Friend, parent, neighbour, first it will embrace;
His country next; and next all human race

Alexander Pope Essay on Man

Henry Wiggins - "From here on in, I rag nobody."