"ELSEWHERE" introduction to Vangelis

-- A very basic introduction to Vangelis and his music --

Who is Vangelis?

Vangelis is a famous Greek composer and keyboardist. He composes and performs mainly instrumental music and film scores. During his career he has flirted with many genres and has proved to be very hard to categorize. His music has been filed as "synthesizer music", "new age", "progressive rock", "Symphonic rock", "Space music", "electronic music", etc. etc. None of those terms is spot on and his output is too varied to catch in one word.

He was born as "Evanghelos Odyssey Papathanassiou" on march 29th 1943 in a small town near Volos, Greece. He started playing the piano at the age of 4 and gave his first public performance of his own compositions at the age of 6. During his student years he was an important part of a successful Greek pop band called the "Forminx". He moved to Paris in the late sixties while forming the band "Aphrodite's Child", together with singer Demis Roussos and drummer Lucas Sideras. They scored many hits all over Europe. In 1970 the group broke up and Vangelis started a solo career. In '75 he moved to London where he set up the legendary Nemo studio that he used to record many of his famous albums and soundtracks. Most legendary are perhaps the Oscar winning score to "Chariots of Fire" and the ever popular score to Ridley Scott's landmark cult film "Blade Runner". In 1987 he left London and subsequently recorded music in Athens ("Direct", "Voices"), Rome ("The City") and Paris ("1492").

Appart from creating music, Vangelis also exercises other arts including painting, which has been doing almost all of his life. Only recently has Vangelis come out of the limelight as a painter, showing his work on a small number of exclusive exhibitions.

What instrument does he play?

Mostly keyboards in all forms (Piano, synthesizer, organ, etc.), but he's also skilled at playing drums and percussion. Credits on albums include instruments as diverse as flutes, vibes, tablas, cembalo, clarinet, tubular bells, timpanies, cymbals and gongs.

In most cases the synthesizer forms the basis of his work. Having developed both technology and his playing style to perform as many parts of a piece as possible in one single performance, he surrounds himself with many keyboards, foot pedals, modules and a mixing desk, and improvises his music straight onto a tape recording. This method makes it possible to record a piece in very little time, working instantly on composition, arrangement, production and performance, keeping the result spontaneous and authentic.

What does he do?

Besides releasing albums he records music whenever he likes. Sometimes he composes music for films, stage plays, special events, etc. He rarely performs in public and allows very few interviews.

Have I perhaps ever heard his music?

Probably, yes. His music has been used for many purposes. What you most likely heard differs per country. A few possibilities:

The German boxer Henry Maske used Vangelis' theme for the film "1492, the Conquest of Paradise" (1992) as his victory tune in 1995. As a result of this the CD single and later the album were rereleased in Europe and reached the tops of most of the charts.
Interesting to note is that Maske never got to meet Vangelis. Maske: "Ich lad' ihn immer ein, aber er kommt nie. Er ist zu sensibel furs Boxen." (I invited him often, but he doesn't come. He's to sensitive for boxing.)
Also heavyweight boxer Tommy Morrison from the USA used this track, but it did not result in any success. Neither for the music nor the boxer.
The main theme for Hugh Hudson's period sports drama "Chariots of Fire"(1981) won Vangelis an Oscar (tm) and both album and single ruled many of the pop music charts at the time. Thereafter it was used as theme for the Olympic games in Sarajevo in 1984. Ever since it managed to pop up in just about every documentary about the Olympics or athletics and appeared in many commercials all over the world. Most notably in a newly recorded version by Vangelis himself in Ridley Scott's "Citroen Xantia" commercial.
Carl Sagan's famous television series "Cosmos" used a lot of Vangelis' music. Selections were heard from albums like "Heaven and Hell" (1975), Ignacio (1975), Spiral (1977), and Beaubourg (1978). The show's main theme was an excerpt from Heaven and Hell part 2. A reedit of the series that was broadcast years later did not feature as much Vangelis music as the first edit did. In 1986 Sagan made a special edition of Cosmos which had some new music written by Vangelis especially for the occasion. This music was never released. Parts of Vangelis' music appeared on a "Cosmos" compilation album (LP/CD), together with classical selections and recordings by Tomita, Synergy and others.
In the Netherlands music from "Spiral" was used as theme music for the popular science-show "Wondere Wereld" while "Kinematic" from the "Antarctica" album is often recognized as the "action music" from "Wedden Dat?"
In the USA and Italy, commercials for "Gallo Wine" used the track "Hymne" from the album "Opera Sauvage" (1979), but in a special version rearranged by Vangelis.
In the early 80's Ford used the opening of "Chung Kuo" from the album "China" in their commercials for the "Mercury Lynx" while Chanel used "The Little Fete" from the same album around the same period for promotion of their "Chanel 5" perfume.
Other famous usage includes "Conquest of Paradise" for the trailer for Brian De Palma's "Mission To Mars" film (although confusingly there was also a version using Basil Poledouris' music), Conquest was also used in Australia by the Westpac Banking Corporation in 1997-1999 and by Orlen in Poland in 2003, "Chariots of Fire" was used in various commercials - most notably as a specially reworked version by Vangelis himself in '93 for Ridley Scott's Xantia promotion - and Missing was used in a South African advertisement campaign. Mythodea was used in the trailer for "X-Men", which can also be found on the DVD release of that movie.
Blade Runner's music was used in the States for a Vicoria's Secret commercial (love theme) and in Japan for a Toyota commercial.

Some Personal information

Vangelis avoids public appearances. He rarely gives interviews and concentrates on making music. He hates gossip and tries to stay out of the limelight.

During his career he lived in Greece ('43 / '68), Paris ('68 / '74), London (Nemo studios '74 / '87), Athens ('87 / '91), Paris (Epsilon laboratory 1991 / 1993). He also spend some months in the USA (1986) and Rome (1989).

Vangelis' last known studio was the "Epsilon Laboratory" in Paris, which was build mostly from glass on the top of a high building in Paris. Since 1993 Vangelis has apparently been moving around a lot, being labeled some sort of "nomad" by the media. He occasionally returned to Greece, his native country, where he allegedly recorded some of his recent albums (Oceanic, El Greco).

He has a brother named Nico, who also worked in the music business, but functioned mainly as producer. Nico would sometimes record Italian pop albums for Polydor in Vangelis' Nemo studio in London in the late seventies.

What next?

So you've browsed through this site and want to know what's next? There's a couple of interesting things. You could check out some other web sites. "The man and his music" by Michael Perkhofer and Stephen Bowline is well known as the first Vangelis site ever, but it's now very outdated. Although it's not being updated anymore, Don Fennimore's Collectors corner still has all the details you could ever need about Vangelis' full discography, and lots of tips on collecting. Antas' Odyssey site has many rare pictures, information on rarities and more resources. The lyrics site by Henk Engelen contains a lot of information on collaborations. The Vangelis Movements site has lots of focussed details on a lot of work Vangelis has recorded during his carreer. There are also various small sites that are worth checking out. You can find links to all these sites and more, in the links section of "Elsewhere".

The Direct Mailing list
One of the nicest things available on the net is the DIRECT mailing list, maintained by Keith Gregoire. For those who are new on the net: This is an E-mail service that can be joined for free by anyone who is interested. Everyone who subscribes to this list will receive all the mails that are send to a specific E-mail address. Subscribers can also contribute and participate in discussions by emailing to this address. This allows you and hundreds of other fans to communicate about Vangelis and his music, and stay - or keep others - up to date. Email addresses can be found in the links section of this site.
There used to be a FAQ about Vangelis, originating from the old DIRECT mailing list, but that hasn't been updated since 1993.

Mark Griffin's book
Another source of information is a book about Vangelis, called "Vangelis - the Unknown Man" by author Mark Griffin. The texts are primarily based on collected articles and interviews, and both Vangelis as well as the original article writers are quoted extensively. Often without proper references and sometimes taken out of context. There are also many mistaken speculations (ie: Not Milva but Vilma Lado sings on Astral Abuse, "Comet" is not an unreleased album but the music for the '86 Halley's Comet edition of Cosmos, Guy Protheroe did not write the 'lyrics' for 1492, "Diner Les Bustes" does not contain original Vangelis music, etc.) This book was released several years ago at a rather small scale, and was updated by Griffin for a second edition in 1997. It was limited to only a thousand copies, and is now very difficult to find. ISBN 0-9523187-2-5, latest edition 1997.

For a while there was also Mark Griffin's international fan club called "ALBEDO", producing a fanzine that was due to appear twice per year. However, Griffin has suspended his activities after the ninth issue (November 2000), being disappointed for not getting support from Vangelis' management and because of the small number of album releases.

Spanish book
In Spain, the pocket series "Rock/pop cathedra" published a book called "Vangelis" (nr45) by Luis Fernando Torre. All texts are in Spanish. Some album covers are displayed in color. The book follows Vangelis' career chronologically, dealing with the Forminx, Aphrodite's Child, his solo work and his collaborations. There's a rather good discography as appendix. ISBN 84-376-1595-X. Latest edition 1998.

Latest Update: January 11, 2004
WEB site made by: Dennis Lodewijks (d.lodewijks@chello.nl)