OBITUARY by Ian Woolley
Oscar-winning Greek composer Vangelis has died…
Born Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou in1943 in the Greek coastal town of Agria, it was at the age of six when he first gave his first public performance.
He was self-taught and during the 60’s formed his first band called The Forminx but it was his moving to Paris and then London where he achieved international acclaim.
Forming Aphrodite’s Child with Egyptian singer Demis Roussos in 1968, he moved to London to set up his own studio called Nemo.
That same year his first studio album was released. Heaven & Hell, and won an Oscar in 1982 for his soundtrack for the film “Chariots of Fire”. The soundtrack reached the top of the US charts.
Other successful soundtracks was Ridley Scott’s “Blade Runner” in the same year, Roman Polanski’s “Bitter Moon” (1992) and Oliver Stone’s “Alexander” (2004).
He was once offered to replace Rick Wakeman in the rock group Yes but turned it down to concentrate on his own work. However, he teamed up with the band’s Jon Anderson to form the duo Jon & Vangelis. Their debut album made the top 5 in the UK album charts.
His final album released last year was called Juno to Jupitor and was inpired by the recent Nasa probe to the planet.
Last Tuesday it was announced that he had died in a Paris hospital. He was seventy-nine years of age.
Full obituary appears in the forthcoming June issue of the Beat.