The world has lost another great. Vangelis, the celebrated electronic musician, died Tuesday at the age of 79 according to reports in the Athens News Agency.
Vangelis enjoyed a long and storied career composing music for film and television, as well as original albums. Vangelis also scored the official anthem for the FIFA World Cup in 2002.
Vangelis is perhaps best known for his Oscar-winning score in Chariots of Fire, the iconic theme. He also collaborated with Ridley Scott on his score for the hit sci-fi film Blade Runner which received a BAFTA and Golden Globe nomination.
He was also nominated at the Grammys four times. Once for the Chariots of Fire soundtrack and three times in the new age album category for his solo work. The opening instrumental piece for Chariots of Fire called “Title” even reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
It was his success with the film that led him to score more films and enjoy the mainstream success that came along with it. Even with his contributions to film, he still found time to create his own solo albums and contribute to Greek theater productions, ballets, and nature documentaries.
His contributions to the natural world would continue when his choral symphony "Mythodea" was used by NASA for its 2001 Mars Odyssey mission. He'd later write original music for the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission to Comet 67P. In 2018, he composed an original score for Stephen Hawking's memorial.
Vangelis always had a fascination for space and science. He's quoted as saying, "Mythology, science and space exploration are subjects that have fascinated me since my early childhood. And they were always connected somehow with the music I write."
While his music has been celebrated here, it is even more celebrated in Greece where he's been considered "“a pioneer of electronic sound." His most recent album, Juno to Jupiter, came out in September 2021. Vangelis’s inspiration for the album stayed true to his love of space exploration as it was influenced by NASA’s Juno spacecraft.
Casey is a freelance writer for IGN. You can usually find him talking about JRPGs on Twitter at @caseydavidmt.
(Photo by Michael Putland/Getty Images)
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Vangelis enjoyed a long and storied career composing music for film and television, as well as original albums. Vangelis also scored the official anthem for the FIFA World Cup in 2002.
Vangelis is perhaps best known for his Oscar-winning score in Chariots of Fire, the iconic theme. He also collaborated with Ridley Scott on his score for the hit sci-fi film Blade Runner which received a BAFTA and Golden Globe nomination.
He was also nominated at the Grammys four times. Once for the Chariots of Fire soundtrack and three times in the new age album category for his solo work. The opening instrumental piece for Chariots of Fire called “Title” even reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart.
It was his success with the film that led him to score more films and enjoy the mainstream success that came along with it. Even with his contributions to film, he still found time to create his own solo albums and contribute to Greek theater productions, ballets, and nature documentaries.
His contributions to the natural world would continue when his choral symphony "Mythodea" was used by NASA for its 2001 Mars Odyssey mission. He'd later write original music for the European Space Agency’s Rosetta mission to Comet 67P. In 2018, he composed an original score for Stephen Hawking's memorial.
Vangelis always had a fascination for space and science. He's quoted as saying, "Mythology, science and space exploration are subjects that have fascinated me since my early childhood. And they were always connected somehow with the music I write."
While his music has been celebrated here, it is even more celebrated in Greece where he's been considered "“a pioneer of electronic sound." His most recent album, Juno to Jupiter, came out in September 2021. Vangelis’s inspiration for the album stayed true to his love of space exploration as it was influenced by NASA’s Juno spacecraft.
Casey is a freelance writer for IGN. You can usually find him talking about JRPGs on Twitter at @caseydavidmt.
(Photo by Michael Putland/Getty Images)
Continue reading...