Evangelos Odysseas Papathanassiou (Greek: Euaggelos Odusseas Papathanasiou, IPA: [ev'anjelos odi'seas papathana'siu] (born 29 March 1943), best known professionally as Vangelis (), is a Greek composer of electronic, progressive, ambient, jazz, and orchestral music. He is best known for his Academy Award-winning score for the film Chariots of Fire, composing scores for the films Blade Runner, Missing, Antarctica, 1492: Conquest of Paradise, and Alexander, and the use of his music in the PBS documentary Cosmos:

While still in Aphrodite's Child, Vangelis had already been involved in other projects. In the 1960s he scored music for three Greek films My Brother, the Traffic Policeman (1963) directed by Filippos Fylaktos, 5,000 Lies (1966) by Giorgos Konstantinou, To Prosopo tis Medousas (1967) by Nikos Koundouros. In 1970 composed the score for Sex-Power directed by Henry Chapier, as well again for Salut, Jerusalem (1972) and Amore (1974).  In 1971, some jam sessions with a group of musicians in London had resulted in two albums' worth of material, unofficially released without Vangelis' permission in 1978, titled Hypothesis and The Dragon. Vangelis succeeded in taking legal action to have them withdrawn. A more successful project was his scoring of wildlife documentary films in the early 1970s made by French filmmaker Frederic Rossif. The first soundtrack L'Apocalypse des animaux was released in 1973. In 1972, the student riots of 1968 provided the inspiration for an album titled Fais que ton reve soit plus long que la nuit (Make Your Dream Last Longer Than the Night), comprising musical passages mixed with news snippets and protest songs; some lyrics were based on graffiti daubed on walls during the riots. He also did music for the 1973 Henry Chapier film Amore.  In 1973 Vangelis' solo career began in earnest. His second solo album was Earth. It was a percussive-orientated album with Byzantine undertones. It featured a group of musicians including ex-Aphrodite's Child guitarist Silver Koulouris and also vocalist and songwriter Robert Fitoussi (better known as F.R. David of "Words" fame). This line-up, later briefly going out under the name "Odyssey", released a single in 1974 titled "Who", but that was Vangelis' last involvement with them. Later in 1974, Vangelis was widely tipped to join another prog-rock band, Yes, following the departure of Rick Wakeman. After a couple of weeks of rehearsals Vangelis wavered on the option of joining Yes, and the band had to detour and hire Swiss keyboard player Patrick Moraz instead, who later joined the Moody Blues. Vangelis did, however, become friends with Yes' lead vocalist Jon Anderson, and later worked with him on several occasions, including as the duo Jon & Vangelis.

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