Tiësto

Tijs Michiel Verwest OON (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈtɛis miˈxil vərˈʋɛst]; born 17 January 1969), known professionally as Tiësto (/tiˈɛstoʊ/ tee-EST-oh, Dutch: [ˈtɕɛstoː]), is a Dutch DJ and record producer. He was voted "The Greatest DJ of All Time" by Mix magazine in a 2010/2011 poll amongst fans. In 2013, he was voted by DJ Mag readers as the "best DJ of the last 20 years". He is also regarded as the "Godfather of EDM" by many sources.

In 1997, he founded the label Black Hole Recordings with Arny Bink, where he released the Magik and In Search of Sunrise CD series. Tiësto met producer Dennis Waakop Reijers in 1998; the two have worked together extensively since then.

From 1998 to 2000, Tiësto collaborated with Ferry Corsten under the name Gouryella. His 2000 remix of Delerium's "Silence" featuring Sarah McLachlan exposed him to more mainstream audiences. In 2001, he released his first solo album, In My Memory, which gave him several major hits that launched his career. He was voted World No. 1 DJ by DJ Magazine in its annual Top 100 DJs readership poll consecutively for three years from 2002 to 2004.

Just after releasing his second studio album, Just Be, he performed live at the 2004 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in Athens, the first DJ to play live on stage at an Olympics. In April 2007, Tiësto launched his radio show Tiësto's Club Life on Radio 538 in the Netherlands and released his third studio album, Elements of Life. The album reached number one on the Belgian album chart as well on Billboard Top Electronic Albums in the U.S. and received a nomination for a Grammy Award in 2008. Tiësto released his fourth studio album Kaleidoscope in October 2009, followed by A Town Called Paradise in June 2014. He won the Grammy Award for Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical for his remixed version of John Legend's hit "All of Me" at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards.

Tijs Michiel Verwest was born in Breda, North Brabant, on 17 January 1969. He discovered his passion for music at the age of 12. He used to listen to radioshows like the Ferry Maat Soulshow and In The Mix from Ben Liebrand. At age fourteen, he intensified his commitment to the art, and began DJing professionally at school parties. Between 1985 and 1994, Tiësto began a residency at several clubs in the Netherlands at the behest of his manager. At the Spock, a small club in Breda, he fine-tuned his own live style by performing from 10 p.m. until 4 a.m. on weekends. In the beginning of his career as a DJ he mostly played new beat and acid house.

In 1994, he began releasing material on Noculan Records' sub-labels Chemo and Coolman. During these years, he produced hardcore and gabber tracks under such aliases as Da Joker and DJ Limited. Tiësto was later discovered by the general manager of Rotterdam-based Basic Beat Recordings.

In late 1994, Tiësto signed to Basic Beat where he met Arny Bink, Tiësto released records on the sub-label Trashcan, founded by Arny, and later created the Guardian Angel sub-label with Arny in which they introduced the popular Forbidden Paradise series. From 1995 to 1996 he released four extended plays on Bonzai Jumps and XTC, sub-labels of Lightning Records. In 1997, he joined his friend Yves Vandichel on his sub-label, DJ Yves, a division of the now defunct Human Resource label XSV Music. In the fall of 1997, Bink and Tiësto decided to leave Basic Beat and create their own parent label, Black Hole Recordings, Trashcan was discontinued and Guardian Angel continued releasing music until 2002. Through Black Hole, Tiësto released the Magik series and also created two major sub-labels; SongBird and In Trance We Trust. From 1998 to 1999, he released music on Planetary Consciousness where he met A&R Hardy Heller and invited him to release some records on Black Hole.

In 1998, Tiësto joined forces with fellow Dutch deejay Ferry Corsten to create the trance-based duo of Gouryella. The first Gouryella track, also called "Gouryella", was released in May 1999 and became a huge hit, scoring various chart positions around the world, including a top-15 position in the UK Singles Chart. Tiësto showcased this track in Magik Three: Far from Earth as well as in his set at the first ID&T Innercity party (Live at Innercity: Amsterdam RAI), his first major breakthrough. The next single, entitled "Walhalla", also made it on the charts worldwide, peaking at No. 27 in the UK Singles Chart. Released via Ferry's Tsunami label, both singles went on to be certified Gold on record sales. During these years, Tiësto also collaborated with Benno de Goeij of Rank 1 under the name Kamaya Painters. In November 1999, he released the first installment of the In Search of Sunrise series. Since then, he performed monthly as a resident at Gatecrasher in Sheffield, and played a 12-hour set, his longest, in Amsterdam. On 31 December 1999, he performed at Trance Energy 2000, a special party held by ID&T for the turn of the millennium.

Together with Armin van Buuren, Tiësto created two projects in 2000; Alibi – "Eternity", which was released on Armind, and Major League – "Wonder Where You Are?", on Black Hole. After the release of "Tenshi" in September 2000, Tiësto decided to concentrate on his solo work and left Ferry Corsten to take on the Gouryella project solely as his own. Through his first compilations and the "In Trance We Trust" series, he ended up introducing Armin van Buuren and Johan Gielen to the mainstream. Summerbreeze marked Tiësto's U.S. debut, a mix album that showcased his remix of Delerium's "Silence", which spent four weeks in the UK's Top Ten chart and reached number three in the Billboard dance chart. In Search of Sunrise 2 was released in November 2000.

In 2001, Tiësto created a new sub-label, Magik Muzik, and released his first solo album, In My Memory, which contained 5 major hits; "Lethal Industry", which was actually produced in 1999 and had only 3 copies released at that time, the track was officially released in 2001 which was remixed by Richard Durand in 2006 along with "Flight 643" which was another leading single that was later adapted with vocals by Suzanne Palmer and released as "643 (Love's on Fire)". Other tracks were "Obsession" in which Tiësto worked alongside Junkie XL, the instrumental tracks "Dallas 4PM" and "Suburban Train" with "Urban Train" as its vocal version. The last singles to be released were "In My Memory" which is the title track for the album as it only received high ratings in the United States and the opening track "Magik Journey" which opened Tiësto in Concert (2003). On 2 February 2002, Tiësto played nine consecutive hours during the second edition of the Dutch Dimension festival.

On 27 February, Tiësto was awarded a Zilveren ('Silver') Harp music award. The same year he also received a Lucky Strike Dance Award in the category Best DJ Trance/Progressive. In August he became part of Moby's Area2 Tour. For eighteen days he travelled through the United States with artists such as Moby himself, but also David Bowie and Busta Rhymes. In January 2003, Tiësto received the annual Dutch Popprijs ('Pop Award') during the Noorderslag festival. After touring with Moby, Tiësto remixed two songs from him, "We Are All Made of Stars" and "Extreme Ways" in the same year, having "We Are All Made of Stars" reach No. 13 in the Hot Dance Club Play. In 2002 he released his first In Search of Sunrise mix to feature a place on its name, In Search of Sunrise 3: Panama. On 28 March 2003; Tiësto, Dieselboy, Bad Boy Bill, and Noel Sanger joined the PlayStation 2 Dual Play tour. Tiësto and Noel's appearance began on 13 April and ended on 6 June.

His fame continued to increase for then known he has in the early 2000s, following his six-hour "Tiësto Solo" sets which he performed without other DJs or opening acts. This idea, of one DJ playing alone to a large crowd was new. Tiësto was the first DJ to hold a solo concert in a stadium; on 10 May 2003, he performed for 25,000 people in Arnhem's GelreDome, later called Tiësto in Concert. He repeated the same type of concert the following year during two consecutive nights in late October. In addition to holding these two concerts for 35,000 of his fans, he held another concert for a crowd of 20,000 in Hasselt, Belgium the following week. DVDs of both his 10 May 2003 and 30 October 2004 concerts have been released, having the other DVD titled Tiësto in Concert 2. The DVDs show the journey from the first idea to the main event, featuring live performances by Andain, Dinand Woesthoff, and Jan Johnston. The event includes live music and dancers performing at different times throughout the set.

In 2004, he released his second artist album Just Be, which featured his first single "Traffic" which is the first non-vocal track to reach number one spot in the Dutch national charts for 23 years.

The track "Sweet Misery" was originally written for Evanescence but it did not meet the deadline for the release of their album. In support to his Just Be album, he played at Breda, Eindhoven, Utrecht, and Amsterdam; these stops were later named Just Be: Train Tour. On 20 May 2004, he was appointed Officer of the Order of Orange-Nassau by Her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. The Athens Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games (ATHOC) asked Tiësto to perform at the Olympic Games, making him the first DJ to play live on stage at an Olympic Games at the 2004 Summer Olympics opening ceremony in Athens, where he played for 90 minutes.

Tiësto flew to Athens in January 2004 to have a meeting with the ATHOC. His Tiësto in Concert DVD caught their attention, after which he was asked to write more tracks based on his opening tune "Adagio for Strings" which would fit in with the Olympic spirit and combine the classical with the modern age. The first rehearsal was on 7 August, for an empty stadium; the second rehearsal was on 8 August, with 35,000 volunteers. The last rehearsal included almost 60,000 people in the stadium which was on 10 August.