Ian Van Dahl

biography

Ian Van Dahl is the new project of Christophe Chantzis and Erik Vanspauwen. Ian Van Dahl was founded in the beginning of 2000. Christophe Chantzis is no stranger in the Belgian dance scene... he was already involved in projects like Absolom and Astroline in the past (check out the links if you don't know these groups!) and now he's back to conquer the world!

Together with the leading vocalist Annemie Coenen, they together form Ian Van Dahl.

At the age of 7 Annemie won her first award at a Sound mix & Playback show. During her growing carrier she kept on working on her voice taking lessons & music school. Together with Ian Van Dahl she managed to reach the top!

Erik's musical carreer started very late. As a kid he was more interested in making cartoons and strips. Music wasn't really part of his life. He got in to a fight with his brothers, many times, when they were watching music programms on the tv. Erik couldn't understand why music moved so many people. But when he heard New gold dream from the Simple Minds, on his brother's 18th birthday party, he was lost. Was it possible people could also make wonderful great music? He must have driven a dozen of times to the record shop to find out if his copy of Simple Minds had arrived. A whole new world opened up for him: Heaven 17, OMD, Ultravox, Human League, ... It was the sound that grabbed him by the spine....This was what he wanted. From that day on synthesizers dedicated his life. Starting with a KORG M1 and expanding to what yet known is as the WIRE ENTANGLEMENT studio. Where hits like Castles in the sky, Will I?, Reason and Forever (Dee Dee) are made.

Christophe Chantzis grew up with music. His father was a DJ, his uncle a famous piano player, his grandmother an opera singer, etc... so it was obvious Christophe would end up in the music bizz. Influenced by the music his father played (Disco, funk,...) he started making tracks on his computer at age 12. Piece by piece he expanded his home studio to become a professional recording studio. Meanwhile he was already into Dj'ing together with his brother Dimitri, only 1 year younger then him.

The first single Castles in the sky has been a great success; even more so in other countries then Belgium. In Germany it reached #2 in the dancecharts and in the Canadian dancechart it got up to number 1 ! Last but not least they have been in the American billboard charts (highest place #78) for some months ! In the American dance charts they got into the TOP15.

Some remixes have been made by German DJs like Tomasso Dedonatis (Watergate, DJ Quicksilver) and Wippenberg aka Olaf Dieckmann.

The lyrics of Castles in the sky have been written by Marsha (her real name is Martine Theeuwen) and Christophe Chantzis. Two versions exist of Castles in the sky: the first with Marsha's voice (remixes and original single) and the later with Annemie Coenen her voice.

In Belgium the first two releases didn't break through - partly because the biggest Belgian Radio Donna didn't promote the song. It was only after the big successes all over the world with Castles that Radio Donna started to play it. (the 3rd re-release in september 2001 featuring Annemie Coenen.)

Castles in the sky managed to get a lot of awards worldwide! Castles in the sky was nominated for the best Progressive House/Trance 12" and best Hi-NRG/Euro 12" of the year 2001 on the WMC awards. Moreover it also won one of the WMC awards: Best Hi NRG/Euro 12" vinyl. WMC - short for The Winter Music Conference - was held from March 23 - 27, 2002 at the Miami Beach Convention Center @ Miami Beach in Florida. It's one of the biggest conferences in the US.

In the UK Ian Van Dahl was nominated for the Dancestar World music awards 2002 in the Best Trance Act category and for Record Of The Year !! They won the award for Best Trance Act!

The second single Will I was released in November 2001 in the UK and in January 2002 in the rest of Europe. Again a UK TOP10 hit!

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