Editing Philip Glass (section)

===1987–1991: Operas and the turn to symphonic music===
Compositions such as ''Company'', ''Facades'' and String Quartet No. 3 (the last two extracted from the scores to ''Koyaanisqatsi'' and ''Mishima'') gave way to a series of works more accessible to ensembles such as the [[string quartet]] and [[symphony orchestra]], in this returning to the structural roots of his student days. In taking this direction his [[chamber music|chamber]] and orchestral works were also written in a more and more traditional and lyrical style. In these works, Glass often employs old musical forms such as the [[chaconne]] and the [[passacaglia]]—for instance in ''[[Satyagraha (opera)|Satyagraha]]'',<ref name=Schwarz /> the [[Violin Concerto No. 1 (Glass)|Violin Concerto No. 1]] (1987), [[Symphony No. 3 (Glass)|Symphony No. 3]] (1995), ''Echorus'' (1995) and also recent works such as [[Symphony No. 8 (Glass)|Symphony No. 8]] (2005),<ref>Philip Glass, booklet notes to the Album ''Symphony No. 8'', Orange Mountain Music, 2006</ref> and ''Songs and Poems for Solo Cello'' (2006).

A series of orchestral works originally composed for the concert hall commenced with the three-movement [[Violin Concerto No. 1 (Glass)|Violin Concerto No. 1]] (1987). This work was commissioned by the [[American Composers Orchestra]] and written for and in close collaboration with the violinist [[Paul Zukofsky]] and the conductor Dennis Russell Davies, who since then has encouraged the composer to write numerous orchestral pieces. The Concerto is dedicated to the memory of Glass's father: "His favorite form was the violin concerto, and so I grew up listening to the [[Violin Concerto (Mendelssohn)|Mendelssohn]], the [[Paganini]], the [[Violin Concerto (Brahms)|Brahms]] concertos. ... So when I decided to write a violin concerto, I wanted to write one that my father would have liked."<ref>{{citation |title=Singers Distinguish Themselves for Visitor |first=Lawrence A. |last=Johnson |periodical=[[Miami Herald]] |date=February 9, 2008 |url=http://www.miamiherald.com/tropical_life/story/402887.html |access-date=November 11, 2008 }}{{dead link|date=September 2010}}</ref> Among its multiple recordings, in 1992, the Concerto was performed and recorded by [[Gidon Kremer]] and the [[Vienna Philharmonic]]. This turn to orchestral music was continued with a symphonic trilogy of "portraits of nature", commissioned by the [[Cleveland Orchestra]], the [[Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra]], and the [[Atlanta Symphony Orchestra]]: ''[[The Light (Glass)|The Light]]'' (1987), ''The Canyon'' (1988), and ''[[Itaipu (composition)|Itaipu]]'' (1989).

While composing for symphonic ensembles, Glass also composed music for piano, with the cycle of five movements titled ''Metamorphosis'' (adapted from music for a theatrical adaptation of [[Franz Kafka]]'s ''[[The Metamorphosis]]''), and for the [[Errol Morris]] film ''[[The Thin Blue Line (1988 film)|The Thin Blue Line]]'', 1988. In the same year Glass met the poet [[Allen Ginsberg]] by chance in a book store in the [[East Village, Manhattan|East Village]] of New York City, and they immediately "decided on the spot to do something together, reached for one of Allen's books and chose ''[[Wichita Vortex Sutra]]''",<ref>Booklet notes by Jody Dalton to the album ''Solo Piano'', CBS, 1989</ref> a piece for reciter and piano which in turn developed into a music theatre piece for singers and ensemble, ''[[Hydrogen Jukebox]]'' (1990).

Glass also returned to chamber music; he composed two String Quartets ([[String Quartet No. 4 (Glass)|No. 4 ''Buczak'']] in 1989 and No. 5 in 1991), and chamber works which originated as incidental music for plays, such as ''Music from "The Screens"'' (1989/1990). This work originated in one of many theater music collaborations with the director [[JoAnne Akalaitis]], who originally asked the [[Music of the Gambia|Gambian]] musician [[Foday Musa Suso]] "to do the score [for [[Jean Genet]]'s ''[[The Screens]]''] in collaboration with a western composer".<ref>Booklet notes by Philip Glass to the album "Music from the Screens", Point Music, 1993</ref> Glass had already collaborated with Suso in the film score to ''[[Powaqqatsi]]'' ([[Godfrey Reggio]], 1988). ''Music from "The Screens"'' is on occasion a touring piece for Glass and Suso (one set of tours also included percussionist [[Yousif Sheronick]] ), and individual pieces found their way into the repertoire of Glass and the cellist Wendy Sutter. Another collaboration was a collaborative recording project with [[Ravi Shankar]], initiated by [[Peter Baumann]] (a member of the band [[Tangerine Dream]]), which resulted in the album ''[[Passages (Ravi Shankar and Philip Glass album)|Passages]]'' (1990).

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Glass's projects also included two highly prestigious opera commissions based on the life of explorers: ''[[The Voyage (opera)|The Voyage]]'' (1992), with a libretto by [[David Henry Hwang]], was commissioned by the [[Metropolitan Opera]] for the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America by [[Christopher Columbus]]; and ''[[White Raven (opera)|White Raven]]'' (1991), about [[Vasco da Gama]], a collaboration with Robert Wilson and composed for the closure of the [[Expo '98|1998 World Fair]] in Lisbon. Especially in ''The Voyage'', the composer "explore[d] new territory", with its "newly arching lyricism", "[[Jean Sibelius|Sibelian]] starkness and sweep", and "dark, brooding tone ... a reflection of its increasingly [[chromatic]] (and [[consonance and dissonance|dissonant]]) palette", as one commentator put it.<ref name="Schwarz" />

Glass remixed the [[S'Express]] song "Hey Music Lover", for the b-side of its 1989 release as a single.<ref>{{Cite episode|title=But Is it Music?|series=In Their Own Words; 20th-Century Composers|network= BBC |date= March 21, 2014 |number= 2 }}</ref>