Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou
On March 29, 1943, Vangelis (a diminutive of Evangelos) was born near Volos, Greece. He 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 also practices, at the Academy of Fine Arts in Athens.
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(1981-1999) 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—while 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. Only one other instrumental track, 1985's "Miami Vice Theme," by Czech musician Jan Hammer, has topped that chart since.
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 that 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.[1] 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.
In February 1981, Vangelis, together with Jon Anderson, adapted the main theme from Chariots of Fire with lyrics for his friend Demis Roussos. It was recorded at Vangelis' London Nemo Studios and released as a single,"Race to the End", in March 1981.
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 (1982). 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.
Unfortunately, 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. Unfortunately, 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.[2]
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.
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(1943-1960) Formative years
