Vangelis, the legendary Greek electronic music composer and musician, best known for creating the theme song for "Chariots of Fire", which won him an Oscar, has died. He was 79. According to the Greek media, Vangelis was being treated at a French hospital after contracting Covid-19 and died there.
According to the Athens News Agency, Vangelis, whose real name is Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou, died on May 18, according to his lawyers' office. However, the lawyer's office didn't give any exact cause of death. Vangelis was also nominated for a Golden Globe and Bafta for his score on Sir Ridley Scott's science fiction thriller, "Blade Runner".
End of an Era
Although reports claim that Vangelis died of Covid, an official statement from his family or office is yet to confirm that. Vangelis won an Academy Award for his soundtrack of Chariots of Fire in 1981. Its cheerful piano motif became famous around the world, and the accompanying soundtrack album went to No. 1 in the US charts.
Lord Puttnam, who produced the film, in his tribute to Vangelis, told the BBC that the composer had created "a new musical landscape".
Vangelis, a self-taught musician, enjoyed a long career in European pop music before the beautiful textures and colors of his 1970s solo records brought him to the attention of film and TV producers. Carl Sagan's 1980 PBS series "Cosmos" used a track from his 1975 album "Heaven and Hell" as the theme, bringing his name and music to popularity in America.
He played in numerous bands and solo, but it was his score for" Chariots Of Fire", a film about two British runners in the 1920s, that gave him his big break.
Vangelis' composition was nominated for one of the four Academy Awards for the picture, but he was sound asleep in London when the results were announced on March 29, 1982, his 39th birthday.
However, he decided not to attend the Academy Awards in March 1982. "They put a lot of pressure on me to go to America for the Oscar," he told a British journalist at the time, "but I don't like to be pushed, and especially for that. I hate the idea of competition."
An Illustrious Career
The success of "Chariots of Fire" instantly made Vangelis bankable as a film composer. In 1982, he was roped in by Ridley Scott for his science-fiction feature "Blade Runner," and Costa-Gavras for the Jack Lemmon drama "Missing."
Both films were nominated for BAFTA awards. In 1984, Mel Gibson's rendition of "The Bounty" was released.
In the following years, he composed for historical dramas that included Ridley Scott's "1492: Conquest of Paradise" (1992) and Oliver Stone's "Alexander" (2004), both less well-known but still musically appealing for their use of electronics alongside traditional orchestra and choirs.
Vangelis also scored the erotic thriller "Bitter Moon" by Roman Polanski (1992).
On Thursday, Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and other government leaders in Greece offered their condolences. Mitsotakis tweeted, "Vangelis Papathanassiou is no longer among us."
Vangelis began playing the piano at the age of four, near the city of Volos in central Greece, despite receiving no professional training and claiming he never learned to read notes.
"I've never studied music," he told Greek magazine Periodiko in 1988, in which he also bemoaned the increasing "exploitation" imposed by studios and the media.
"At one time there was a craziness... now it's a job."
Vangelis also composed for the Greek theatre ("Elektra," 1983, and "Medea," 1992, both with Irene Papas), for London ballets ("Modern Prometheus," 1985, and "Beauty and the Beast," 1986), and for Jacques Cousteau's "Rediscover the World," 1992).
In 2018, he composed music for physicist Stephen Hawking's funeral. NASA's Juno space probe inspired his most recent studio album, "Juno to Jupiter," released in 2021. Two of his later solo albums, "Oceanic" from 1996 and "Rosetta" from 2016, received Grammy nominations for Best New Age Album.
His personal life is shrouded in mystery. According to some stories, he was married twice but never had children.
