[5] His works bring together a variety of mediums, including recorded music, spoken word, choreography and dance, mime, lip syncing, and video.

[2] Additionally, his works have featured a range of performers, including actors Uma Thurman and Julia Stiles, as well as singer Iggy Pop, and poet Allen Ginsberg.

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 who published a negative review of the opera.

[10] The work featured vocals by poet Allen Ginsberg and a small part voiced by actress Julia Stiles.

As a performer, The New York Times compared Moran with figures like Merce Cunningham and Twyla Tharp,[11] and as a composer he received an Obie Award.

The article presented 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.

He relocated to Germany and re-mounted his work Everyday, Newt Burman in 2001 at Staatstheater Darmstadt, where he apparently met German dancer Eva Müller who starred in the remounted production.

Regarding these duet performances, TimeOut Magazine wrote that Moran had "reaffirmed his reputation as one of the most important (and underrated) figures in the avantgarde".

However, possibly owing to disappointing reviews from his ambitious 2000 work, Book of The Dead (2nd Avenue), Moran seemed to resign himself with smaller venues,[7] such as Galapagos Art Space in Brooklyn, and Joe's Pub in New York City.

In 2005, Moran began to work exclusively with Japanese-born dancer Saori Tsukada, who in numerous reviews was described as a performer of unusual precision and stage presence.

It was said that after seeing Tsukada from a distance on the street one afternoon, the composer knew the two strangers were "meant" to work together, and waited for her to return during a power outage in 2003.

This seems to have marked a shift in subject matter for Moran, who then began to appear in his works as himself,[7] often telling highly personal stories about his bizarre life, and describing (in artistic terms) an "obsession" with his then next-door-neighbor, Tsukada.

[3] His series of duets under the title John Moran..and his neighbor, Saori—with dancer and performer Saori Tsukada—saw praise and European touring throughout the years of 2005-2011.

In 2017, his 1990 opera The Manson Family received a new production in Germany, commissioned by Hellerau Center for European Arts (Dresden) and Schaubühne Lindenfels (Leipzig).

His body language, the way his facial muscles move, and of course the voice, every aspect of a person is seamlessly brought together in a minutely detailed portrayal of the protagonists of the story."

[1] It seems attributable to the highly specific nature of Moran's works, that although they have been well received, in general have not seen a larger audience in a commercial sense.

[citation needed] Although much of Moran's works have contained what could be called "traditional" music (or "underscoring", which often simulates orchestral passages by use of synthetic generated sounds), the main emphasis in composition for Moran has always been so interwoven with specific actions called for in the work's narrative, that it would be impossible to separate his compositions from the action and staging they have been designed to correspond to.

[citation needed] Certainly influenced by Philip Glass (as well as others in the minimalist genre; Steve Reich, Terry Riley or Arvo Pärt) the use of repetitive structures is often employed.

[citation needed] In all of Moran's works, one finds these edited events have been finessed in order that the peculiarities of their internal rhythms align to an underlying tempo.

The separate elements of the events are heard to be "tuned" (or subtly pitched) in order to create harmonic relationships together, again emphasized in part by the work's underscoring.

The effect is like a rapidly shifting overview of many different people at once, each in their own unique time and situation, but somehow unified in their shared experience of this musicality.

[citation needed] Another structural device often used by Moran, has been that of cycles, or loops of action where the end of a sequence leads seamlessly into its beginning.

Owing to the sounds and events (i.e., the stage action) being unified by a shared tempo, the use of separate but simultaneous cycles can be particularly striking in these works.

Often, he has employed a method whereby seemingly separate events from different moments in the work's narrative, are later brought together to show a complex, rhythmic counterpoint to each other, in overlapping cycles.

So in having these aspects in common, the various cycles could start at the same moment, but then run for extended periods of time, always remaining in rhythmic counterpoint to each other, but in a constant state of evolution as the process unfolds.

[citation needed] His best-known works include Jack Benny!, The Manson Family: An Opera, Every Day Newt Burman (The Trilogy of Cyclic Existence), Mathew in the School of Life, Book of the Dead (2nd Avenue) and John Moran...and his neighbor, Saori.