Already in his appearance, kind bearded face, there is something beyond time. As if Zeus had sent him here to turn pictures of the sky and of the earth into a supreme divine donation of music. One of the major figures of contemporary music is the seventy-year-old Vangelis.
The Greek keyboardist and composer Evanghelos Odysseas Papathanassiou was born on March 29th 1943 in Volos. In his early teen years like his peers, he was attracted to rock music, he created the Aphrodite’s Child band at home, which burst into the world with a Pachebel transcript, Rain And Tears in 1968. The band, whose lead singer Demis Roussos was playing classical-inspired music for five years, they reached the top in 1972 with the song entiteled 666.
Vangelis had already been using the new and improved electronic musical instruments and he was interested in thematic compositions. Above all, his independent success, away from the unfamiliar, almost hostile world was his intense creative work. His self-titled album Fais Que Ton Reve Devienne Reel (Make your dream a reality) appeared in 1971, the 1968 sound montage capturing the student movement. This "visible" music became the reclusive live musicians drive for more than three decades of his solo career.
Vangelis in film history today is mentioned next to great composers such as Miklos Rozsa, Nino Rota, and John Williams. He gave dramatic pillars to Hugh Hudson's Chariots of Fire on the Olympic-themed film (received an Oscar), he worked with his compatriot, Costa Gavrasszal (Declared missing), his music appeared in Blade Runner, and many people believe that the Bounty’s new version , Ridley Scott’s 1492 and Oliver Stone's Alexander the Great is watchable because of Vangelis's music. It is no coincidence that the soundtrack of Chariots of Fire and 1492 is also performed as a music concert. Vangelis had previously worked with Frédéric Rossif and Jacques-Yves Cousteau's nature films and Francois Reichenbach’s documentary on migrant workers, he also wrote the music for Ignacio. These are mostly simple, almost minimalist melodiescans move one’s imagination as if his film was projected in our brain, but those pieces that are not made for movies can also launch moving pictures in a thinking man's mind.
The soundtrack is of course just a part of Vangelis’s life-work. He created major oratorio-like works – such as the 1975, Heaven and Hell ,1984 Mask, or the Mars Expedition in honor of the Athenian Acropolis foothills in 2001, Mythodea – His World Music attempt in 1979 China, the Spiral and Albedo 039, while depicting early 80's war hysteria in See You Later. (More of his motifs became signals on our TV and radio programs.) He recorded a chanson disc in German with the most important Italian Brecht singer Milva, Greek folk traditions are played on the two albums which were written by Irene Papas. He wrote the works for El Greco paintings and his guest star was the world-famous catalan soprano Montserrat Caballé. He worked with Jon Anderson several times and the vocalist of Yes, their success album was The Maltese Falcon's legendary "black film" reviving Friends of Mr. Cairo. He composed music for the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games closing ceremony, he also remarked the signal of the 2004 Athens Olympics. In 2012, the opening of the London Games, his music, Chariots of Fire was heard.
Vangelis is a global citizen. In the 60s he fled from the "black colonels' dictatorship in Greece, he lived in Paris, London and Los Angeles, but in the last decades he returned home more and more often. He rarely gives concerts, and even more rarely gives statements. His personal life is taboo, all we know is that he lived with a Polish-born photographer, Véronique Skawinska for a long time. "Ever since I can remember, music was parallel with everything I did and thought. Music is the best way to understand the world and communicate with nature" – he said a few years ago.
