Modern Monday Vangelis
January 31, 2012 in Modern Monday
Vangelis…oh man Vangelis.
Possibly one of the biggest musical heroes out of Greece in the last 100 years.
Vangelis is a world-renowned Greek composer, keyboardist, and multi-instrumentalist. He mainly composes instrumental and film music and he performs all the music by himself.
I have almost all of his recorded works and really enjoy listening to his approach to using synthesizers. Like Wendy Carlos he treated the synth like a synth and truly had his own original voice as an electronic musician.
Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou (Greek: Ευάγγελος Οδυσσέας Παπαθανασίου [evˈaɲɟelos oðiˈseas papaθanaˈsiu]) (born 29 March 1943) is a Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, pop rock and orchestral music, under the artist name Vangelis (English pronunciation: /væŋˈɡɛlɨs/).[1] He is best known for his Academy Award-winning score for the film Chariots of Fire, and scores for the films Blade Runner, 1492: Conquest of Paradise and Alexander.
Vangelis began his professional musical career working with several popular bands of the 1960s such as The Forminx and Aphrodite’s Child, with the latter’s album 666 going on to be recognized as a psychedelic “classic”.[2] Throughout the 1970s, Vangelis composed music scores for several animal documentaries, including L’Apocalypse Des Animaux, La Fête sauvage and Opéra sauvage; the success of these scores brought him into the film scoring mainstream. In the early 1980s, Vangelis formed a musical partnership with Jon Anderson, the lead singer of progressive rock band Yes, and the duo went on to release several albums together as Jon & Vangelis. In 1981, he composed the score for the Oscar-winning film Chariots of Fire. The soundtrack’s single, “Titles”, won Vangelis the Academy Award for Best Original Music Score and also reached the top of the American Billboard.
In a career spanning over 50 years, writing and composing more than 52 albums, Vangelis is regarded by some music critics as one of the greatest composers of electronic music of all time
I was introduced to his music through Duane Bridges, friend, composer and old roommate. I was tooling around with CHARIOTS OF FIRE one day and Duane came in and said, “awww yeah playing some Vangelis are we???” The rest was history when Duane broke out his collection of recordings and helped me find videos on YouTube. His old band, Aphrodites Child has a song that we used to play in the band I was in with Duane. Best part of being in that band was that I got to play keys! Really got me into playing synths like they should be.
I always imagined having a synth throw down with him and a bunch of other keyboards to come up with some similar sounds, but never really got into buying keyboards. Not like Vangelis did at least!
HOLY SMOKES!
The man has a ridiculous number of synths.
Keep in mind, he always tried to do everything live for the recording process. Not a lot of overdubbing or coming up with parts after the fact.
These photos are all of his past studios. The one on the far right is in Paris and on the roof of a building in what appears to be a greenhouse like structure! AWESOME!
Scope this list:
Vangelis’ Analogue synthesizers
| Model | Spotted at…. |
|---|---|
| ARP 2500 | One cabinet in the Musical Express broadcast. |
| Arp Odyssey | Superstar LP (“Earth” re-release, photo around ’80) |
| Arp Pro Soloist | Photo |
| Elka Rhapsody 610 | Sound on Sound “Recording Vangelis” equipment list |
| Farfisa Synthorchestra | Sound on Sound “Recording Vangelis” equipment list |
| Korg 700 monophonic | Interview Keyboard ’84 |
| Korg 800DV “Maxi Korg” | inside cover of Heaven and Hell LP |
| Korg Poly 800 | Sound on Sound “Recording Vangelis” equipment list |
| Korg Polyphonic Ensemble | Japanese LP pressing |
| Korg PS-3300 | Spotted in a video interview |
| Moog Minimoog | keyboard interview’81 |
| Moog Modular System | Booklet of 3LP box |
| Moog Satelite | Sound on Sound “Recording Vangelis” equipment list |
| Oberheim 2 Voice | Odes LP |
| Oberheim Matrix 12 | Photo (in Keyboard?) |
| Roland Juno 106 | There are two of them on the “Sound Studios” photographs in the “Direct” booklet |
| Roland Jupiter 4 (JP-4) | Sound on Sound “Recording Vangelis” equipment list |
| Roland Jupiter 6 (JP-6) | Seen on Herrod Atticus concert photographs |
| Roland JX8P | Spotted in Nemo studios on photographs |
| Roland MKS 20 | French Musicien magazine |
| Roland MKS 70 | French Musicien magazine |
| Roland MKS 80 Super Jupiter | Photo in “Direct” booklet |
| Roland ProMars Compuphonic | Photo in “Superstar LP” (Earth) |
| Roland SH-3A | Sound on Sound “Recording Vangelis” equipment list |
| Roland SH-1000 | Sound on Sound “Recording Vangelis” equipment list |
| Roland SH-101 | Spotted in Antarctica DVD extra feature |
| Roland System 100 | French “guitarre et Clavier” magazine |
| Roland System 700 modular | Pictures in booklet of 3LP box |
| RSF Kobol | Keyboard USA interview |
| Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 | Keyboard interview ’81 |
| Sequential Circuits Prophet VS (rackmount) | Photo in “Direct” booklet |
| Sequential Circuits Prophet 10 | Photo in “Direct” booklet |
| Yamaha CS-40M | Keyboard interview ’81 |
| Yamaha CS-80 | Keyboard interview ’81 |
That is just the analog collection alone.
More on this page---> http://elsew.com/data/synths.htm
Anyway, his approach to doing music live with lots of synths, sequencer like machines really pioneered and paved the way towards modern on board digital sequencers, and digital audio workstations.
Here are a collection of my favorite Vangelis tunes from Youtube.
ENJOY!
