Vangelis

From Wind Repertory Project
Vangelis

Biography

Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou ( b. 29 March 1943, Valos, Greece - 17 May 2022, Paris), known professionally as Vangelis, was a Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock, and orchestral music.

He was best known for his Academy Award-winning score for the film Chariots of Fire, composing scores for the films Antarctica, Blade Runner, Missing, 1492: Conquest of Paradise, and Alexander, and the use of his music in the PBS documentary Cosmos: A Personal Voyage by Carl Sagan.

After having taken piano lessons from renowned Greek composer Aristotelis Koundouroff, Vangelis began his professional musical career working with several popular bands of the 1960s such as The Forminx and Aphrodite's Child, with the latter's album 666 going on to be recognized as a psychedelic classic. Throughout the 1970s, Vangelis composed music scores for several animal documentaries, including L'Apocalypse des Animaux, La Fête sauvage and Opéra sauvage; the success of these scores brought him into the film scoring mainstream.

In 1974, he moved to Britain, where he built his own synthesizer recording studio in London’s West End. In 1981, he composed the score for the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire, for which he won an Academy Award for Best Original Music Score. The soundtrack's single, the film's "Titles" theme, also reached the top of the American Billboard Hot 100 chart and was used as the background music at the London 2012 Olympics winners' medal presentation ceremonies.

He was also known for composing scores for the films Antarctica, Blade Runner, Missing, 1492: Conquest of Paradise, and Alexander, and the use of his music in the PBS documentary Cosmos: A Personal Voyage by Carl Sagan.

Having had a career in music spanning over 50 years and having composed and performed more than 52 albums, Vangelis was considered to be one of the most important figures in the history of electronic music.


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