Celebrity Biographies
Vangelis
He composed glorious electronic music soundtracks for films like “Blade Runner” or “Chariots of Fire”, for which he won an Oscar. The Greek musician Vangelis died on May 17, 2022, at the age of 79, due to COVID-19, in Paris, according to a statement from his lawyers.
Born on March 29, 1943 in Agria, a coastal town in Magnesia , Evangelos Odysséas Papathanassíou – full name of Vangelis – grew up in Athens. He developed an interest in music at the age of four, composing on the family piano and experimenting with sounds by placing nails and kitchen pots inside the instrument and using radio interference.
At age six, his parents signed him up for music lessons, but Vangelis later said that his attempts to study “failed” because he preferred to develop technique on his own. In fact, he considers himself lucky not to have attended music school, since in his opinion it “stops creativity.” He learned to play by heart. “When the teachers asked me to play something, I would pretend to read it and play it from memory. I wasn’t fooling them, but I didn’t care.” In addition, he studied painting at the Athens School of Fine Arts.
Vangelis got his start in film with animal documentaries, such as L’Apocalypse des Animaux, La Fête sauvage, and Opéra sauvage . In the early 1980s, he formed a musical partnership with Jon Anderson, lead singer of the progressive rock band Yes, and the duo released several albums together as Jon & Vangelis. In 1980, he composed the score for Chariots of Fire , for which he won an Academy Award for Best Original Score.
In addition to the well-known theme of the aforementioned Blade Runner , Vangelis is behind the soundtrack of titles such as Disappeared , Mutiny on board , 1492, the conquest of paradise , and Alexander the Great . It was characterized by the use of synthesizers and sometimes acoustic instruments to create surround sound atmospheres, in a generally grandiose and solemn tone. The diversity and complexity of the work contained in his discography makes it difficult to classify him as a purely New Age artist, since he is even considered one of the pioneers of the avant-garde of electronic music. Although some of his best-known works pertain to the world of film and television music, Vangelis has achieved recognition for both his soundtracks