John Moran (composer) - Early Career: 1988-2000

Early Career: 1988-2000

Moran's first opera, Jack Benny, was created in 1988, and composed entirely of snippets of sound from the Jack Benny television series. The piece was staged at New York's La Mama Experimental Theater Club, where it was presented by performance troupe Ridge Theater, and received strong praise in publications such as The New York Times. Although the work was considered a benchmark for modern composition at the time, the work itself was reportedly stolen in a Lower East Side apartment robbery, and has not been presented again (presumably because it no longer exists). There are many unusual anecdotes about Moran's life at this time, including his living "behind the couch" of Philip Glass for several years, after showing up on the older composer's doorstep and announcing himself Glass' protégé. Glass himself confirmed such stories in several interviews (The Boston Globe, 1997 and The New York Times, 2000).

In 1990, Moran was commissioned by Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts to create his second opera, The Manson Family, which starred Iggy Pop. A recording of the opera was produced by Glass and released on POINT Music/Philips/PolyGram Records. Although the recording was almost immediately recalled by its parent label for obscene language and content, it achieved the instant status of cult classic, and is still widely distributed by fans around the world. This is the only recording by Moran to present, which has ever received public release. In another unusual anecdote concerning Moran's early career, Charles Manson was thought to have taken it upon himself to send a letter to Wall Street Journal critic Mark Swed, for his penning a negative review of the opera upon its release.

In 1993, Moran's trilogy opera Everyday, New Burman (The Trilogy of Cyclic Existence) debuted at the larger Annex space at La Mama E.T.C. in New York City to wide critical acclaim. Owing to the opera, Moran was awarded a Bessie Award, and the following year a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award.

In 1995 and 1996 his opera Mathew in The School of Life premiered at The Kitchen in New York City. The work featured vocals by poet Allen Ginsberg and a small part voiced by actress Julia Stiles. As a performer, The NY Times compared Moran with figures like Merce Cunningham and Twyla Tharp, and as a composer he received an Obie Award. In these later early works by Moran, one can find him expanding into work with theatrical illusions and detailed specifications regarding the works staging. The use of doubled performers, playing the same part were often employed in his scoring of these events, to mimic the effect of cinematic-style editing.

At the end of this period, in 1997, his version of The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari premiered at American Repertory Theater at Harvard. Concerning Caligari, The Boston Globe described Moran as "a modern day Mozart", but Moran himself expressed an unhappiness with the production, as well as the work's producer Robert Brustein and its presenting partners Ridge Theater, which apparently resulted in a tense and public split with the group. In a 1998 New York Times article the following year, Moran claimed to have seen his staging and visual ideas appropriated by the group, while being publicly uncredited to him by the group's director, Bob McGrath. The article presented several other points of view on the subject from the New York theater world of the time, but clearly marked an end to a decade of joint-production by the two parties.