Vangelis, the Greek electronic composer who wrote the unforgettable Academy Award-winning score for the film Chariots of Fire and music for dozens of other movies, documentaries and TV series, has died at 79.Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and other government officials expressed their condolences Thursday. Greek media reported that Vangelis — born Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou — died in a French hospital late Tuesday.“Vangelis Papathanassiou is no longer among us,” Mitsotakis tweeted, calling him an “electronic sound trailblazer” whose death is “sad news for the entire world.”
Born Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou in 1943, the young Vangelis developed an early interest in music and experiments with sounds produced by banging pots and pans or fixing nails, glasses and other objects to the strings of his parents' piano. He absorbed the tones of Greek folk songs and Orthodox Christian choral music, but he had no formal musical training, which he later said had helped save his sense of creativity.After a start with local rock bands, Vangelis left for Paris at the age of 25, joining an exodus of young artists following a 1967 coup that installed a military junta in Greece. Away from home, he was attracted by the then-new field of electronic synthesizers that allowed him to create the lush melodic colours that became his trademark sound.Despite enjoying success in the European "prog rock" scene of the early 1970s with Aphrodite's Child, a band he formed with fellow Greek musician Demis Roussos, Vangelis was uncomfortable with the expectations on a commercial performing artist and largely retreated to the recording studio he created for himself in London.