Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou (Born March 29, 1943 in Volos, Greece) (Greek: Ευάγγελος Οδυσσέας Παπαθανασίου ), is a world renowned, Greek composer of electronic, new age, and classical music, under the artist name Vangelis (a diminutive of Evangelos; in English). He is best known for his Academy Award winning score for the film Chariots of Fire, and scores for the films Blade Runner and 1492: Conquest of Paradise.
Vangelis is generally regarded by music critics to be one of the greatest composers of electronic music of all time.
Biography
Formative years
On
March 29,
1943, Vangelis was born near
Volos,
Greece. He purportedly began composing at the age of four, and is largely a self-taught musician. He refused to take traditional
piano lessons, and throughout his career did not have substantial knowledge of reading or writing musical notation. He studied painting, an art he still practices, at the Academy of Fine Arts in Athens. When he was six, Vangelis' parents enrolled him at a specialist music school in Athens. Vangelis said in an interview with
Life, when asked about his lack of ability to read music:
When the teachers asked me to play something, I would pretend that I was reading it and play from memory. I didn't fool them, but I didn't care.
Work in bands
In the early 1960s he was one of the founders of pop group The Forminx (or The Formynx), which became popular in Greece. Based in
Thessaloniki in the north of the country, the five-piece band played a mixture of
cover versions and their own material, the latter written mostly by Vangelis but still sung in English. The Forminx released nine hit singles and a Christmas EP before disbanding in 1966 at the peak of their success. A film being made about them at the time was never finished. Vangelis spent the next two years mostly studio-bound, writing and
producing for other Greek artists.
Around the time of the student riots in 1968, Vangelis founded progressive rock band Aphrodite's Child together with Demis Roussos, Loukas Sideras and Anargyros "Silver" Koulouris. After an unsuccessful attempt to enter the UK, they found a home in Paris where they recorded their first single, a hit across much of Europe called Rain and Tears. Other singles followed, including two albums, which, in total, sold over 20 million copies. The record sales led the record company to request a third album, and Vangelis went on to conceive the double-album 666, based on Revelation, the last book in the Bible. Tensions between members during the recording of 666 eventually caused the split of the band in 1971, but the album was still released in 1972. Despite the split, Vangelis has since produced several albums and singles for Demis Roussos, who, in turn, contributed vocals to the Blade Runner soundtrack.
Early solo works
While still in Aphrodite's Child, Vangelis had already been involved in other projects. In 1970 he had composed the score for a film called
Sex Power (Demis Roussos provided vocals). In 1971, some
jam sessions with a group of musicians at Marquee Studios in
London had resulted in two albums' worth of material, unofficially released without Vangelis' permission in 1978, titled
Hypothesis (aka
Visions of the Future), and
The Dragon. Vangelis succeeded in taking legal action to have them withdrawn. A more successful project was his scoring of wildlife films made by
French filmmaker Frédéric Rossif. The first was
L'Apocalypse des Animaux, released in 1973. In 1972, the student riots of 1968 provided the inspiration for an album titled
Fais que Ton Rêve Soit Plus Long que la Nuit (Make your dream last longer than the night), comprising musical passages mixed with news snippets and
protest songs - some lyrics were based on graffiti daubed on walls during the riots.
Solo career
In 1973 Vangelis' solo career began in earnest. His first "official" solo album was
Earth, though it did actually feature a group of musicians including ex-Aphrodite's Child guitarist Silver Koulouris and also vocalist and songwriter
Robert Fitoussi (better known as
F.R. David of "Words Don't Come Easy" fame). This line-up, later briefly going out under the name "Odyssey", released a single in 1974 titled "Who", but that was Vangelis' last involvement with them. Later in 1974, Vangelis was widely tipped to join another prog-rock band,
Yes, following the departure of
Rick Wakeman. After a couple of weeks of rehearsals Vangelis decided not to join Yes and, instead, they went on to hire Swiss keyboard player
Patrick Moraz, who later joined the
Moody Blues. Vangelis did, however, become friends with Yes' lead vocalist
Jon Anderson, and later worked with him on several occasions, including as the duo
Jon & Vangelis.
After moving to London, Vangelis signed with RCA Records, set up his own studio, Nemo Studios, and began recording a string of electronic albums, such as Heaven and Hell (1975), Albedo 0.39 (1976), Spiral (1977), Beaubourg (1978), and China (1979). Parts of Heaven and Hell were later used as the theme to the PBS television series Cosmos by Carl Sagan. A melody from Albedo 0.39 called "Alpha" was also used in Cosmos. Another part (the song "So Long Ago, So Clear"), featured guest vocals by Jon Anderson, marking the start of the partnership. Vangelis also contributed as a producer and keyboard player to the album Phos, by the Greek rock band Socrates Drank the Conium (later known simply as Socrates).
In 1979, Vangelis provided the score for another animal documentary by Frédéric Rossif, Opera Sauvage. Almost as well known as L'Apocalypse des Animaux, the resulting soundtrack would bring him to the attention of some of the world's top filmmakers. The music itself would be re-used in other films (most notably the track "L'Enfant" in The Year of Living Dangerously (1982) by Peter Weir) and television commercials (the track "Hymne", used in Barilla pasta commercials in Italy and Ernest & Julio Gallo wine ads in the US).
Film work
Chariots of Fire
In 1981, Vangelis wrote the score for the film
Chariots of Fire, set at the
Paris Olympics in 1924. The choice of music was unorthodox as most period films featured traditional orchestral scores; Vangelis' music was modern and synthesizer-heavy. The movie won a half-dozen awards, including an
Academy award for Best Picture of the year. Vangelis won the
Academy Award for Original Music Score. The opening theme of the film was released as a single in 1982, topping the American
Billboard chart for one week after climbing steadily for five months.
Greek musician Stavros Logarides claimed Vangelis had copied the melody of "Titles" from one of his compositions called "City of Violets". Once a member of a 1970s band called Poll and actually a friend of Vangelis at the time, Logarides sued Vangelis for plagiarism in 1987. When the case came to court, Vangelis set up synthesizers in the courtroom and played for the judge and all others present, though less for entertainment purposes and more so he could demonstrate his compositional process. The judge ruled that "Titles" was a Vangelis original, being a strong, vibrant piece of music, whereas "City of Violets" was fairly sombre and somewhat mournful by comparison, and any similarities in the melody were minor.
Other notable Vangelis soundtracks were Antarctica for Nankyoku Monogatari in 1983, and The Bounty in 1984. Vangelis also collaborated in 1981 and 1986 with Italian singer Milva, achieving a large success especially in Germany with the albums Ich Hab' Keine Angst and Geheimnisse (I am fearless and Secrets). The Italian language Nana Mouskouri Album also
featured her singing his composition Ti Amero. Collaboration numbers
with lyricist Mikalis Bourboulis sung by Maria Farantouri included the
tracks Odi A, San Elektra, and Tora Xero.
Blade Runner
In 1982, Vangelis began a collaboration with
director Ridley Scott, writing the score for the science fiction film
Blade Runner. Capturing the isolation and melancholy of
Harrison Ford's character Rick Deckard, the Vangelis score is as much a part of the dystopian environment as the decaying buildings and ever-present rain.
A disagreement led to Vangelis withholding permission for his performance of the music from Blade Runner to be released, and the studio instead hired a group of musicians dubbed "The New American Orchestra" to record the official LP released at the time. It would take 12 years before things could be worked out and Vangelis's own work be released in the United States in 1994. Yet this soundtrack was still incomplete, as the film contained some non-Vangelis tracks as well. Over the years a series of bootleg recordings of Blade Runner soundtrack from unknown sources have been released, mostly targeted to collectors as "private releases", that contain most of the music cues (including the Ladd Company logo theme). A 3 disc boxset has been released in late 2007 containing the 1994 album, a second disc containing some more of the missing music cues and a third disc of new Vangelis material inspired by Blade Runner. The 2007 release is still missing some incidental music, most notably the background music from the Taffey Lewis bar scene featuring vocals by Demis Roussos.
1492: Conquest of Paradise
In 1992,
Paramount Pictures released the film
1492: Conquest of Paradise, also directed by
Ridley Scott, as a 500th anniversary commemoration of
Christopher Columbus' voyage to the New World. Vangelis's score was nominated as "Best Original Score - Motion Picture" at the 1993
Golden Globe awards, but was not nominated for an Academy Award.
Other works
In 1983 Vangelis wrote the music for
Michael Cacoyannis' staging of the Greek
tragedy Elektra which was performed featuring
Irene Papas at the open-air amphitheater at Epidavros in Greece. The same year Vangelis composed his first score for a ballet by
Wayne Eagling. It was originally performed by Lesley Colier and Wayne Eagling himself at an
Amnesty International gala in
Drury Lane, but in 1984 the
Royal Ballet School presented it again at the
Sadler's Wells theater. In 1985 and 1986, Vangelis wrote music for two more ballets: "Frankenstein - Modern Prometheus" and "The Beauty and the Beast". In 1992, Vangelis wrote the music for the
Euripides play, "
Medea", that featured
Irene Papas. In the 90's, Vangelis scored a number of undersea documentaries for
French ecologist and filmmaker,
Jacques-Yves Cousteau.
During 1980, six years after Vangelis decided against joining
Yes, he and
Jon Anderson, the lead singer of Yes, released their first album together,
Short Stories, under the band name of
Jon & Vangelis. They would eventually go on to release three more afterwards;
The Friends of Mr. Cairo,
Private Collection and
Page of Life released in 1981, 1983, and 1991 respectively.
The Olympic Games
In May 2000, Vangelis composed the music as well as designed and directed the artistic Olympic flag relay portion of the Closing Ceremonies of the 2000
Sydney Olympic Games. The performance prompted many, including Vangelis himself, to think that he would play an influential role in the artistic development of the 2004
Athens Olympic Games. The Athens Olympic Committee (ATHOC) had other plans, however, and the job was given to someone else. For the first time ever, a
DJ,
Tiesto, composed and mixed an entire
trance music soundtrack for the Olympics. STATUS magazine author Nikos Mouratidis interviewed Vangelis in June 2002 and concluded the following:
Since Vangelis is so familiar with Greek mythology, he should know that Greece is just like Saturn, who ate his children. And Greece prefers to eat Vangelis who is its child rather than all those who have little to do with Greece, tradition, culture and its dreams.
While no official recording of Vangelis' composition for the 2000 Sydney Games exists, the music can be heard accompanying the presentation of the emblem of the 2004 Athens Games.
2000's
Vangelis performed live and released Mythodea, a predominantly orchestral rather than electronic piece that was originally written in 1993, and used by NASA as the theme for the Mars Odyssey mission in 2001. A year later, in 2002, Vangelis created the 2002 FIFA World Cup Official Anthem for the 2002 World Cup.
In 2004, Vangelis released the score for Oliver Stone's Alexander, continuing his involvement with projects related to Greece. Vangelis released 2 albums in 2007; the first was a 3 CD set for the 25th Anniversary of Blade Runner, titled Blade Runner Trilogy and second was the soundtrack for the Greek movie, El Greco, titled El Greco Original Motion Picture Soundtrack.
Personal life
Little is known about Vangelis' personal life and he rarely gives official interviews to
journalists. Although, in a 2005 interview with
The Telegraph, Vangelis talked openly about various parts of his life. He stated, in the interview, that he was "never interested" in the "decadent lifestyle" of the era that his band days were in, choosing not to take
drugs or drink
alcohol. Vangelis also revealed that he had never been married, and, instead, was involved in his third
long-term relationship at the time. When asked why he had not had children, Vangelis replied:
...Because of the amount of travelling I do and the nonsense of the music business. I couldn't take care of a child in the way I think it should be taken care of.
It is not known where Vangelis generally resides; he has stated that he "travels around", rather than settling down in one specific place or country for long periods of time. As a hobby, Vangelis enjoys painting; his first art exhibition toured
South America in 2005.
Musical style and compositional process
As a
musician, Vangelis relies heavily on
synthesizers and other electronic approaches to music.
Synthtopia, an electronic music review
website, stated that Vangelis' music could be referred to as "symphonic electronica" because of his use of synthesizers in an
orchestral fashion. The afforementioned review site went on to describe his music as
melodic: "drawing on the melodies of
folk music, especially the
Greek music of his homeland. Vangelis' music and compositions have also been described as "...a distinctive sound with simple, repetitive yet memorable tunes against evocative rhythms and
chord progressions.
In an interview with Soundtrack, a music and film website, Vangelis talked about his compositional processes. For films, Vangelis stated that he would begin composing a score for a feature as soon as he sees a rough cut of the footage. In addition to working with synthesizers and other electronically based instruments, Vangelis also works with and is a conductor to orchestras. For example, in the Oliver Stone film Alexander, Vangelis conducted an orchestra that consisted of various classical instruments including; sitars, percussion, finger cymbals, harps, and Duduk's.
Vangelis uses a technique of recording all tracks simultaneously on tape, using a device specially manufactured for him called a Direct box.
He explains his customary method of approach. As soon as the musical idea is there, as many keyboards as possible are connected to the control-desk, which in turn are directly connected to the applicable tracks of the multi-trackmachine. The idea now is to play as many keyboards as possible at the same time. That way as broad a basis as possible develops which only needs fine-tuning. After that it's a question of adding things or leaving out things." —
Honours and legacy
France made Vangelis a
Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters in 1992.In 1995, Vangelis had a
minor planet named after him (
6534 Vangelis) by the
International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Centre at the
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory.
NASA conferred their
Public Service Medal to Vangelis in 2003. The award is the highest honour the space agency presents to an individual not involved with the
American government. Five years later, in 2008, the board of the
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens voted to make Vangelis an Horonary Doctor, making him
Professor Emeritus at their Faculty of Primary Education.
Discography
Studio albums
References
See also
External links
