He later joined Stearns to play live for Continuum, bringing his Serge synthesizer with him, on which Michael Stearns would record his album "Morning Jewel" in 1979 before building his own Serge synthesizer. In the same period, Stearns started working with Craig Huxley scoring movies and developed a friendship with Stephen Hill. In 1981, Continuum moved to a new location and Michael Stearns began a solo career. He put together some ideas he performed live during the workshops on his Serge and came to his classic "Planetary Unfolding". Ideas of the same kind were put together to form the album "Light Play" in 1983 and the track "Return" on the album "Lyra". Michael signed on the label Sonic Atmospheres in 1984, on which some of his earlier works would be re-released ("Light Play" became "M'Ocean" in 1984, "Morning Jewel" became "Jewel" in 1985, and "Planetary Unfolding" was given a new release in 1985). In 1984, "Chronos" was the first film music done entirely by Stearns after years of collaboration with Huxley or Maurice Jarre. In 1986, he provided "electronic images and textures" for Constance Demby's album "Novus Magnificat". After two more releases for Sonic Atmospheres, "Plunge" (1986) and "Floating Whispers" (1987), Michael Stearns signed to Stephen Hill's new label Hearts of Space Records and released "Encounter". In the next years, Michael Stearns worked again with Ron Fricke, scoring "Baraka", his best-known composition, and released several albums, working with Steve Roach, Kevin Braheny and/or Ron Sunsinger (1989 : "Desert Solitaire", 1994 : "Singing Stones" and "Kiva") or alone (1993 : "Sacred Sites", 1995 : "The Lost World"). In 2000 and 2001, Michael Stearns, now established in Santa Fe, New Mexico, released several albums on his own label Earth Turtle : "Within", "The Middle of Time", "Spirits of the Voyage", "The Storm", and "Sorcerer". He is still scoring movies and documentaries today. Michael Stearns is involved in the music for the film Samsara which premiered in 2011. In his earlier albums, he often used the Serge Modular synthesizer, giving his music a twinkling and "cosmic" sound.