Vangelis Papathanassíou (b.1943)
The film score of Vangelis’s that I’ve been influenced by is of course from Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982). Vangelis’s music is a perfect match to the film’s luminescent grandiosity. A strking moment happens when a police craft flies over a futuristic building: Vangelis tracks this action with a sweeping, reverbed, analogue synthesizer portamento. Simple and beautiful, this is sound-painting.
I sung with the choir on his soundtrack for Ridley Scott’s 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992) at the former CTS studios in Wembley. A bit of insider trivia for you: the Latin-sounding words are (apparently) not Latin, but words made to sound like Latin! The vocal arrangements were made by the skillful Guy Protheroe.
Blade Runner (1982) directed by Ridley Scott
