Vangelis

Vangelis, the legendary Greek composer behind the unforgettable score for Chariots of Fire has died at the age of 79.

“It’s much quicker, there’s no agonising, and if I make a mistake then I’m the only one who can be blamed. “I don’t do any demos. For all that is known about his career and composition, very little is known about his personal life – Vangelis reportedly bought a house at the foot of the Acropolis that was nearly demolished in 2007 because the government said it spoiled the view from a new museum. Stream more entertainment news live & on demand with Flash. 25+ news channels in 1 place. His “private office” announced the news on his Elsewhere fan page, and the Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis expressed his condolences for the loss of the “electronic sound trailblazer”. New to Flash? Try 1 month free.

Vangelis, the 79-year-old Greek electronic composer who wrote the Oscar-winning score for Chariots Of Fire and the music for dozens of other films, ...

I still listen to his albums a lot.” Vangelis has also been acclaimed as a "genius" who “created music of extraordinary originality and power" by the worlds of music and film. His fascination with science, particularly the mechanics of music and sound, and space travel led to pieces composed for NASA and the European Space Agency. Vangelis went on to compose music for films such as Blade Runner (1982), 1492: Conquest Of Paradise (1992), Missing (1982), and Antarctica (1983), among others. He played in numerous bands and as a solo performer, and Vangelis' first taste of fame came in the 1960s with his first Greek pop band Forminx, which he formed in Athens with three friends while in his 20s. Vangelis, the 79-year-old Greek electronic composer who wrote the Oscar-winning score for Chariots Of Fire and the music for dozens of other films, documentaries, and TV shows, has died.

ATHENS :Vangelis, the Greek composer whose rousing electronic theme music for the Oscar-winning 1981 film "Chariots of Fire" became one of the most loved ...

But he was also slightly dismissive of the enormous popularity it enjoyed. Advertisement Advertisement

Born Evángelos Odysséas Papathanassíou in 1943, Vangelis grew up in Athens, where he formed his first band in 1963. During this time he also began working as a ...

He died on the 19th May aged 79, in a hospital in France where he was being treated. He subsequently went on to earn an Academy Award for Best Original Score for his work on Chariots of Fire, and has composed for films including Blade Runner and Missing. During this time he also began working as a freelance writer and producer, as well as working on film scores.

His Oscar-winning main theme for Chariots beat John Williams' score for the first Indiana Jones film in 1982.

"When I saw some footage, I understood that this is the future. Little is known of his personal life. But this is where we're going," he said. His Oscar-winning main theme for Chariots beat John Williams' score for the first Indiana Jones film in 1982. Blade Runner and Chariots of Fire composer Vangelis, the electronic music pioneer, and sole Greek to win an Academy Award for best original score, died late Tuesday aged 79. Or you might not sell anything feeling very happy," he said.

Greek composer Vangelis died at the age of 79 in a hospital in Paris late Tuesday, a law firm representing him announced.

Vangelis, the Greek electronic composer who wrote the unforgettable Academy Award-winning score for the film 'Chariots of Fire' and music for dozens of ...

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When Chariots of Fire was released, people had no idea of how iconic its score was even though they slowly lapped up the title track.

Greece-born Vangelis’ journey until that moment of winning the Oscar for a British film was nothing less than Olympian. There is exhilaration, there is melancholy and there is the unmatched sense of achievement you’re left with, perhaps breathless a little for living the ethos of the tune. There’s a booming horn somewhere, a delicate fingering of the strings somewhere else but you are always taking a stride forward, timing it with the deliberately delayed and exaggerated drum clap. The synthesizer until then was simply a stand in for the piano, for composers to show you a sample of their work without having to lug around the piano. Greece-born Vangelis’ journey until that moment of winning the Oscar for a British film was nothing less than Olympian Until Chariots of Fire, electronica in cinema was commonly associated with futurism on screen.

The Greek star's Oscar-winning film scores and electronic works created "a new musical landscape".

Its presidents Tom Lewis and Laura Monks said: "The world has lost a genius. He added: "It is also hard to understand how groundbreaking Chariots of Fire was. In addition to Blade Runner, the composer was nominated for Baftas for his scores for Missing and Chariots of Fire. Fellow composer Bear McCreary wrote that he was "a true musical pioneer", saying: "Chariots of Fire and Blade Runner were among the most innovative and influential scores in the history of the medium." Vangelis was "one of my heroes" and "just a beautiful person", Van Buuren wrote on Twitter, adding: "I still listen to his albums a lot." Greek composer Vangelis, who was known for his celebrated film themes for Chariots of Fire and Blade Runner, has died at the age of 79.

ATHENS, Greece — Vangelis, the Greek electronic composer who wrote the unforgettable Academy Award-winning score for the film “Chariots of Fire” and music ...

Vangelis composed the music for Blade Runner and Chariots of Fire, which won him an Academy Award.

He believed that there was something inherent in humans to want to discover — whether that meant up in the sky or in a studio. While he was most associated with the synthesizer, the instrument was also a source of frustration for him. Then he moved to Paris and co-founded the popular prog-rock group Aphrodite's Child. The band eventually split and Vangelis got a solo record deal with RCA Records. His efforts earned him a win for best original score at the Academy Awards. According to his assistant Lefteris Zermas, Vangelis died on the May 17 in a hospital in Paris, due to heart failure. The success led him to other film work.

With music that ended up crossing paths with Jay-Z, Donna Summer and Rotting Christ, the late Greek composer's creative mind was thrillingly open.

The Four Horsemen earned the distinction of being effectively rewritten twice – first by the Verve on 1997’s The Rolling People, which tipped the wink to those in the know by taking its title from the lyrics of 666’s Altamont, and then by Beck on 2008’s Chemtrails – as well as being subjected to a cover version by Euro-techno titans Scooter. Elsewhere, the album’s tracks were borrowed by both Oneohtrix Point Never and Dan the Automator and, perhaps inevitably given its title and subject matter, found favour with black metal bands. Their success led to more soundtracks (although Papathanassiou was choosy about the films he worked on) and a series of 80s instrumental albums. Something of 666’s apocalyptic intensity lingered around 1975’s Heaven and Hell, and Odes, the album of Greek songs he recorded with actor Irene Papas (although 1979’s album China and his acclaimed soundtrack to the nature documentary Opera Sauvage were easier on the ear). Murkier, more abstract and far more emotionally ambiguous than the air-punch-inducing Chariots of Fire, its legend was bolstered by the fact that it wasn’t released as an album for over 20 years: a rotten orchestral version, which Scott and Papathanassiou hated, came out in its absence. He also unexpectedly developed a parallel career as a pop star, in the company of Yes vocalist Jon Anderson, an Aphrodite’s Child fan who had contributed to Heaven and Hell and Opera Sauvage. The three albums they released as Jon and Vangelis deftly bridged the gap between prog rock and the vogue for synth-pop. Greek pop music of the 1960s is not an area of musical history where anyone who doesn’t fondly remember it first-hand is advised to dwell.

The composer, best known for his soundtracks to Chariots of Fire and Blade Runner, was a pioneer in the field of electronic music.

His rousing score for 1981’s Chariots of Fire, which won him an Oscar, became indelibly associated with sporting montages – especially after being performed by Mr Bean at the opening ceremony of the London Olympic Games. The composer’s chilling soundtrack to the 1982 science fiction thriller Bladerunner was similarly acclaimed, receiving nominations for a Golden Globe and a BAFTA. At a time when film music tended to be symphonic, he broke new ground with his synth-heavy soundtracks – and was much admired for it. Living in Paris in the early 1970s, he released his first solo album, Fais que ton rêve soit plus long que la nuit, and began to establish himself as a TV and film composer.

Under the mononym Vangelis, the Greek composer and instrumentalist revolutionized electronic music and movie soundtracks in the early 1980s. Who among us hasn't ...

(Maybe it was the Greek angle that lured him to do that one?) He continued to make genre-defying music and working in theater until his final years. (He skipped the Academy Awards because of a fear of flying.) He described himself as a synesthetic, one whose senses intersect in unusual ways. Or I would hear something and think ‘what is the food?’” he said.) Like any innovator he had innumerable copycats, eagerly hired by producers who thought one guy at a synthesizer could do the job of a full orchestra. By this point, Vangelis’s legacy was secure, both for film scoring and for electronic music in general. In 1983 he scored the Japanese survival-drama Antartica, and in 1984 he once again got anachronistic for Ronald Donaldson’s voyage The Bounty. This re-telling of the famous Age of Sail mutiny starred Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson (and Daniel Day-Lewis and Liam Neeson and Edward Fox and Laurence Olivier—everyone is in this movie, it’s incredible) but in addition to its gorgeous location footage, it boasts a curiously uneasy half-electronic score from Vangelis echoing across the centuries. The “Love Theme,” in particular, is a mesmerizing blend of retro and futuristic, a world in eternal night, gorgeous, harrowing, lonely, yet intimate. The Blade Runner score (the CD of which this writer would bring to stereo shops when testing out high-end speakers) represents an incredible mix of genres. He and Anderson would continue to collaborate over the years as “Jon and Vangelis,” an opportunity for the Yes star to play less elaborate rock and softer, dare-we-call-it “New Age” music. He was composing well-received “new classical” symphonies, recording what could be described as “world music” (albums like China has its inspiration right on the title), and scoring some higher profile film and television projects. These were early days for synthesizers and computer technology, and the dreams of the future (a telephone in your car?!?) were starting to come true. For some—the ones buying modems and obsessing about the Space Shuttle—these laser beam swoops and swirling vector graphic aural oddities represented the soundtrack to life. While Vangelis was not the singer in Aphrodite’s Child, he emerged as the principal songwriter, culminating in 666, a double-album based on the Book of Revelation that mixed psychedelia, jazz, experimental keyboard sounds, spoken word, and general far-out-ness.

Composer whose work ranged from pop, jazz and classical to the Oscar-winning Chariots of Fire soundtrack.

In 2014 he composed three pieces for the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission, and these appeared on his album Rosetta (2016). He even had an asteroid (no 6354) named after him by the Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union. Its combination of warm, accessible melodies and conventional instruments alongside a Yamaha CS-80 synthesiser helped bring Vangelis to the attention of mainstream film-makers (Peter Weir used music from it in The Year of Living Dangerously in 1982). It set the stage for Vangelis’s pivotal partnership with Hudson, whom he had first met in Paris in the early 70s, on Chariots of Fire. In 1979 he formed Jon and Vangelis with Anderson, who reached the UK Top 5 with their album Short Stories, the first of four they would make together. His choral symphony Mythodea, which he performed in Athens in 2001 with the operatic sopranos Jessye Norman and Kathleen Battle, was adopted as the official music for Nasa’s Mars Odyssey space mission. Vangelis, who played all the soundtrack instruments himself, won the 1982 Academy Award for best original score, and the fact that Chariots of Fire won the best picture Oscar probably owed much to the impact of Vangelis’s music. In 1974 he auditioned for the British prog-rockers Yes at the instigation of Anderson, but turned down the job after problems with work permits. Vangelis began playing the piano and other instruments from the age of four, and his parents sent him for music lessons when he was six. A progressive concept album devised by Vangelis, 666 was based on the Book of Revelation. His bandmates were not enthusiastic about this new direction and the members went their separate ways. Equally significant was his score for Ridley Scott’s sci-fi masterpiece Blade Runner (1982). Vangelis created a stunning sonic panorama of the fragmented, alienated world that Scott depicted on the screen, where advances in technology were matched by the decay of human emotions. At the time his stage name was Vagos. “It was just our idea of having fun,” he recalled, but Forminx became one of Greece’s best-known bands. However he did it, he created a string of enduring and hugely varied works, ranging from pop and semi-classical compositions using a mixture of synthesisers, electronica and traditional instrumentation to some of the most memorable film scores in cinematic history. They split in 1966, and Vangelis met Demis Roussos the following year.

The worlds of music and movies are in mourning following the death of composer Vangelis has died aged 79. The Greek musician - who was born Evangelos ...

From 'Blade Runner' to 'Chariots Of Fire', the pioneering musician Vangelis has left an indelible imprint on movie history.

He chose sparingly, rejecting the likes of the 2001: A Space Odyssey sequel in favour of Mel Gibson seafaring drama The Bounty in 1984 and garnering further awards and plaudits for his music for Missing (1982), 1492: Conquest Of Paradise (1994) and Roman Polanski’s Bitter Moon (1992). Meanwhile, he turned to theatre and ballet scores, more nature documentaries (working with Jacques Cousteau) and themed solo albums. Following Chariots Of Fire and his masterful evocations of sci-fi dystopia for Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) – which he withheld permission to release on record until 1994 – Vangelis was flooded with offers for soundtrack work. For such a publicity shy artist – it’s still unclear how many marriages he had, or where he lived for much of his life – his music seemed as broad as the universe itself. Born Evángelos Odysséas Papathanassíou on 29 March 1943, in Agria, Greece, Vangelis was composing avant garde pieces on the family piano involving nails, pans and radio static from the age of four, and developed a love of rock and jazz by his mid-teens. He’d later embark on a successful collaboration with singer Jon Anderson; the first of four albums they made as Jon And Vangelis, 1980’s ‘Short Stories’, hit number 4 in the UK, while their 1981 single ‘State Of Independence’ became a hit for Donna Summer. Hand in hand with the electropop revolution, the evocative synth overtures of Chariots Of Fire and Blade Runner helped to embed electronic music at the heart of the 1980s.