Remembering Vangelis, born on this day in 1943.

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Vangelis is a world-renowned Greek composer, keyboardist, and multi-instrumentalist. He mainly composes instrumental and film music, and he performs all the music by himself. During his career he has flirted with many genres and his music proved to be very hard to categorize. His music has been filed as “synthesizer music”, “electronic music”, “new age”, “progressive rock”, “symphonic rock”, “space music”, “electronic music”, etc. etc. None of those terms is spot on, and his output is too varied to catch in one word.

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He was born as “Evanghelos Odyssey Papathanassiou” on March 29th 1943 in a small town near Volos, Greece. He started playing the piano at the age of 4 and gave his first public performance of his own compositions at the age of 6. During his student years, he was the founder member of a successful Greek pop band called the “Forminx”. In the late 1960s, he moved to Paris and formed the band “Aphrodite’s Child”, together with singer Demis Roussos and drummer Lucas Sideras. They scored many hits all over Europe.

In 1970, the group broke up and Vangelis started a solo career. In 1975, he moved to London where he set up his legendary Nemo studio that he used to record many of his famous albums and soundtracks. Most legendary are perhaps the Oscar winning score to “Chariots of Fire” and the ever popular score to Ridley Scott’s landmark film “Blade Runner”.

In 1987, he left London and subsequently recorded music in Athens (“Direct”, “Voices”), Rome (“The City”), Paris (“1492”) and Athens again (“Voices”).

Apart from creating music, Vangelis also exercises in other forms of art including painting and sculpting, which he has been doing throughout his life. Only recently has Vangelis come out of the limelight as a painter, showing his work on a few exclusive exhibitions.

Keyboards are his main stable of instruments, either as synthesizers and other types of electronic keyboards, or grand pianos. He is also a multi-instrumentalist and is proficient with playing percussion, drums, as well as a diverse collection of instruments such as flute, vibraphone, tabla, harpsichord, clarinet, tubular bell, timpani, cymbal, and gong. Sometimes he incorporates into his music a choir ensemble, guest vocalists, or arrangements for a symphony orchestra.

In most instances, synthesizers and electronic keyboards form the basis of his work. Having harnessed technology to suit his personal style, he performs as many parts of a composition in one single performance. He surrounds himself with keyboards, and with the use of foot pedals, modules, and a mixing desk, and improvises his music straight onto a recording. His quick methods make it possible for him to record a piece of music in very little time, working instantly on composition, arrangement, production and performance, keeping the result fresh and spontaneous.

Besides releasing albums, he records music whenever he likes. Sometimes he composes music for films, stage plays, special events, etc. He rarely performs in public and allows very few interviews.

His music has been used for many purposes. What you most likely heard differs per country. A few possibilities are:

• The German boxer Henry Maske used Vangelis’ theme for the film “1492, the Conquest of Paradise” (1992) as his victory tune in 1995. As a result of this, the CD single and later the album were re-released in Europe and reached the tops of most of the charts. Interesting to note is that Maske never got to meet Vangelis. Maske: “Ich lad’ ihn immer ein, aber er kommt nie. Er ist zu sensibel furs Boxen.” (I invited him often, but he doesn’t come. He’s too sensitive for boxing.) Also heavy weight boxer Tommy Morrison from the USA used this track, but it did not result in any success. Neither for the music nor the boxer.
• The main theme for Hugh Hudson’s period sports drama “Chariots of Fire”(1981) won Vangelis an Oscar ™ and both album and single ruled many of the pop music charts at the time. Thereafter, it was used as theme for the Olympic games in Sarajevo in 1984. Ever since, it managed to pop up in just about every documentary about the Olympics or athletics and appeared in many commercials all over the world. Most notably in a newly recorded version by Vangelis himself in Ridley Scott’s “Citroen Xantia” commercial.
• In the Netherlands music from “Spiral” was used as theme music for the popular science-show “Wondere Wereld” while “Kinematic” from the “Antarctica” album is often recognized as the “action music” from “Wedden Dat?”
• In the USA and Italy, commercials for “Gallo Wine” used the track “Hymne” from the album “Opera Sauvage” (1979), but in a special version rearranged by Vangelis. In the early 80’s Ford used the opening of “Chung Kuo” from the album “China” in their commercials for the “Mercury Lynx” while Chanel used “The Little Fete” from the same album around the same period for promotion of their “Chanel 5” perfume.
• Other famous usage includes “Conquest of Paradise” for the trailer for Brian De Palma’s “Mission To Mars” film (although confusingly there was also a version using Basil Poledouris’ music), Conquest was also used in Australia by the Westpac Banking Corporation in 1997-1999 and by Orlen in Poland in 2003, “Chariots of Fire” was used in various commercials – most notably as a specially reworked version by Vangelis himself in ’93 for Ridley Scott’s Xantia promotion – and Missing was used in a South African advertisement campaign. Mythodea was used in the trailer for “X-Men”, which can also be found on the DVD release of that movie.
• Blade Runner’s music was used in the States for a Vicoria’s Secret commercial (love theme) and in Japan for a Toyota commercial, while Ridley Scott used some of it in the UK for a series of anti drugs infomercials.

Vangelis’ last known studio was the “Epsilon Laboratory” in Paris, which was build mostly from glass on the top of a high building in Paris. Since 1993 Vangelis has apparently been moving around a lot, being labeled some sort of “nomad” by the media. He occasionally returned to Greece, his native country, where he allegedly recorded some of his recent albums (Oceanic, El Greco).

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Discography

Main article: Vangelis discography (on Wikipedia)

Studio albums

Fais que ton rêve soit plus long que la nuit (1972)
Earth (1973)
Heaven and Hell (1975)
Albedo 0.39 (1976)
Spiral (1977)
Beaubourg (1978)
Hypothesis (1978; unofficial)
The Dragon (1978; unofficial)
China (1979)
See You Later (1980)
Soil Festivities (1984)
Mask (1985)
Invisible Connections (1985)
Direct (1988)
The City (1990)
Foros Timis Ston Greco (1995)
Voices (1995)
Oceanic (1996)
El Greco (1998)
Mythodea – Music for the NASA Mission: 2001 Mars Odyssey (2001)
Rosetta (2016)
Nocturne: The Piano Album (2019)
Juno to Jupiter (2021)

Soundtracks

5000 Lies (1966)[143]
L'Apocalypse des animaux (1973)
Ignacio (aka "Do You hear the Dogs Barking?" and "Entends-tu les chiens aboyer") (1975)
La Fête sauvage (1976)
Opéra sauvage (1979)
Chariots of Fire (1981)
Blade Runner (1994; official)
Antarctica (1983)
The Bounty (1984)
Francesco (1989)
1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992)
Alexander (2004)
Blade Runner Trilogy: 25th Anniversary (2007)
El Greco: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack (2007)
Chariots of Fire – The Play: Music from the Stage Show (2012)

Vangelis – Conquest of paradise

Vangelis – Chariots Of Fire

Vangelis – Memories Of Blue

Blade Runner Blues – Vangelis – 1982

Vangelis Hymne

Hymne (Remastered) · Vangelis Vangelis: Delectus