Vangelis Papathanassiou was a self-taught musician
In 1981, he composed the score for Charities of Fire.
Its opening theme, with its uplifting inspirational embellishment and ornate arrangement
was released as a single and reached the top of the Billboard Hot 100.
His efforts won him the Academy Award for Best Original Score.
Success led him to other film work. Most notably, he composed the soundtrack to the original Blade Runner, as well as Carl Sagan’s PBS documentary series Cosmos.
Aside from creating scores, Vangelis is also prolific in his solo career, releasing albums regularly until last year’s Juno to Jupiter.