After Dinner Speakers: Vangelis, David Pearce, Peter Collett

New age music star Vangelis was born Evangelos Papathanssiou on March 29, 1943 in Greece. At age four he began playing the piano, an instrument at which he excelled throughout his school years. During his 20s Vangelis, as he was nicknamed, played keyboards in a series of Greek rock Bands, one of which -- the progressive rock quartet Aphrodite's Child -- earned a moderate European following in the late '60s. When the group disbanded in 1970, Vangelis began a solo career, though Vangelis continued working with former Aphrodite's Child vocalist Demis Roussos, who later turned up on several of Vangelis' solo albums. Vangelis' solo effort was a soundtrack to the French film Apocalypse des Animaux; its success paved the way for future soundtrack work, which became Vangelis' focus over the next several decades. In the mid-1970s he left Paris -- where Aphrodite's Child had relocated in the late 1960s -- for London, which became his adopted home. Between soundtrack projects Vangelis recorded synth-laden instrumental new age albums which earned him a devoted following worldwide. By the early 1980s he became a household name, when his scores for Carl Sagan's Cosmos project and the hit movies Blade Runner and Chariots of Fire won critical acclaim and several international awards. Today, Vangelis remains a popular new age musicians; his latest album, Portraits (So Long Ago So Clear), was released in 1997.