Vangelis’ spectacular career as a composer and musician began at the age of four. At six years of age and without formal musical training he gave his first concert with his own compositions.
At the end of the sixties he moved to Paris in order to further explore music and sound through electronica. There, he developed a creative relationship with French director Frederic Rossif for whom he composed several music scores for fiction films as well as films for wild animals.
During the mid seventies he moved to London and set up his own studio where he composed “Heaven and Hell”, “Albedo 0,39”, “Spiral”, “Beaubourg”, “China”, and “See You Later”. These works were the product of an almost total merger of acoustic and electronic arrangment.
In 1978 Vangelis collaborated with Irene Papas in “Odes”, a collection, and a year later with Yes member Jon Anderson. His collaboration with Anderson produced a series of collections such as “Short Stories”, “The Friends of Mr. Cairo” and “Private Collection”.
In 1982 he received an Oscar for the score of Chariots of Fire. This led to the creation of soundtracks for a number of important films such as Antarctica by Koreyoshi Kurahara, Bounty, Missing by Kosta Gavras, Blade Runner and 1492 - Conquest of Paradise by Ridley Scott, Bitter Moon by Roman Polanski.
Vangelis has also composed music for the ballet and theater, including productions of ancient tragedies at the ancient Greek theater of Epidaurus.
He then released the collections “Soil Festivities”, “Direct” and “Themes” and in 1989 he was awarded The Annual Max Steiner Award for the composition and presentation of acclaimed film scores. In 1990 he released “The City” and in the following year he performed at an open air concert for the celebration of the Eureka European Programme in Rotterdam attracting an audience of over 250.000.
Vangelis’ album with the score of “1492 - Conquest of Paradise” became gold and platinum in 17 countries.
In Germany he received the Echo Award for 1995 and the Golden Lion Award for the best score in a film. Other distinctions followed such as the award of the acclaimed French title of Chevalier des Artes et des Lettres and the Apollon Award by the Association of Friends of the National Athens Opera.
In the September of 1995 he released “A tribute to El Greco” with Monserrat Caballe and in 1996 the works “Voices” and “Oceanic”.
In 1996 he composed the score for Iannis Smaragdis’ feature CAVAFY which resulted in two awards for Best Film Score at the Flanders International Film Festival as well as the International Film Festival of Valencia in Spain.
He was named Best Selling Greek Artist for the years 1996 and 1997 at the World Music Awards in Monte Carlo.
In 1997 he was responsible for the design, direction and arrangement of the Opening Ceremony of the 6th World Athlectics Championships of IAAF.
Vangelis accepted NASA’s proposal to compose a musical piece that would be sent to Mars as a specimen of the human civilization. His composition entitled MYTHODEA was presented in a monumental concert in the summer of 2001 in Athens, with famous sopranos Jessy Norman and Kathleen Battle.
Vangelis is currently writing the soundtrack for Oliver Stone's much anticipated Alexander (2004)