Vangelis

From Athens to Paris

Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou was born on March 29, 1943 in Agria, in Magnesia, Greece, and raised in Athens. He began composing at about four, never learned to read or write music and was largely self-taught. In 1963 he co-founded The Forminx, which made nine singles and a Christmas EP before disbanding in 1966. In 1967 he formed Aphrodite's Child with Demis Roussos, Loukas Sideras and Silver Koulouris; the group settled in Paris after the military coup of 1968, signed to Philips, had a hit with "Rain and Tears" and made End of the World (1968), It's Five O'Clock (1969) and the double concept album 666 (1972) before splitting in 1971.

In Paris he wrote film scores, among them Sex Power (1970), Salut Jerusalem (1972) and Amore (1974), and the music for Frederic Rossif's nature documentaries such as L'Apocalypse des animaux (1973). His first solo album was Fais que ton reve soit plus long que la nuit (1972), followed by Earth (1973). He declined to audition as Rick Wakeman's replacement in Yes, a job that went to Patrick Moraz.

Nemo Studios

In 1974 and 1975 he moved to London and built Nemo Studios, a 16-track room on Hampden Gurney Street near Marble Arch. RCA gave him a four-album deal in August 1975, and Heaven and Hell (1975), Albedo 0.39 (1976), Spiral (1977) and Beaubourg (1978) followed; excerpts from the first two were used in Carl Sagan's Cosmos in 1980. His favorite instrument was the Yamaha CS-80, used from Spiral onward. He moved to Polydor in 1979 and made China (1979) and See You Later (1980), and from 1979 to 1991 worked with Yes's Jon Anderson as Jon and Vangelis, whose Short Stories (1980) reached number 4 in the UK.

Chariots of Fire (1981, directed by Hugh Hudson) put "Titles" at number 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 for a week and the soundtrack atop the Billboard 200 for four, and won the Academy Award for Best Original Score in March 1982, which he did not attend. He scored Blade Runner (1982) and Missing (1982), then Antarctica (1983), The Bounty (1984) and 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992, for Ridley Scott). Nemo Studios closed in 1988 and he moved to a portable digital setup. Later works include Mythodea (2001, a NASA Mars Odyssey theme), the score for Alexander (2004), pieces for the ESA's Rosetta mission (the 2016 album Rosetta) and Juno to Jupiter (September 24, 2021), his 23rd and last studio album, with the soprano Angela Gheorghiu.

Honors and legacy

He received the Max Steiner Award in 1989, was named a Chevalier of the Order of Arts and Letters in 1992 and a Commander in 2017, had a minor planet, 6354 Vangelis, named for him in 1995, received the Legion of Honour in 2001 and the NASA Public Service Medal in 2003, and an honorary doctorate from Athens in 2008. He painted, with a first exhibition of 70 paintings in Valencia in 2003, and rarely gave interviews. He died on May 17, 2022, aged 79, in Paris. Pitchfork ranked the Blade Runner score first in its 2019 list of the 50 best movie scores of all time, and Den of Geek credits it with an influence on Air and Aphex Twin.