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Mike Oldfield
Oldfield at the Night of the Proms in 2006
Background information
Birth name	Michael Gordon Oldfield
Born	(1953-05-15) 15 May 1953 (age 71) Reading, Berkshire, England
Genres	\n Progressive rock \n world \n folk \n classical \n ambient \n new-age \n pop \n experimental \n minimalist \n
Occupations	Musician songwriter record producer video game designer
Instruments	Guitar bass keyboards percussion vocals
Years active	1967\u20132023
Labels	Virgin Epic Reprise/Warner Bros. Mercury/Virgin EMI/Universal
Formerly of	The Sallyangie
Spouses	\n Diana Fuller \n (m. 1978; div. 1978) \n Sally Cooper \n (m. 1979; div. 1986) \n Fanny Vandekerckhove \n (m. 2002; div. 2013)

Website	mikeoldfieldofficial.com

Michael Gordon Oldfield (born 15 May 1953) is an English retired musician, songwriter and producer best known for his debut studio album Tubular Bells (1973), which became an unexpected critical and commercial success. Though primarily a guitarist, Oldfield played a range of instruments, which included keyboards and percussion, as well as vocals. He had adopted a range of musical styles throughout his career, including progressive rock, world, folk, classical, electronic, ambient and new age music.\n

Oldfield took up the guitar at age ten and left school in his teens to embark on a music career. From 1967 to 1970, he and his sister Sally Oldfield were a folk duo, the Sallyangie, after which he performed with Kevin Ayers. In 1971, Oldfield started work on Tubular Bells which caught the attention of Richard Branson, who agreed to release it on his new label, Virgin Records. Its opening was used in the horror film The Exorcist and the album went on to sell over 2.7 million copies in the UK. Oldfield followed it with Hergest Ridge (1974), Ommadawn (1975) and Incantations (1978), all of which feature longform and mostly instrumental pieces.\n

In the late 1970s, Oldfield began to tour and release more commercial and song-based music, beginning with Platinum (1979), QE2 (1980) and Five Miles Out (1982). His most successful album of this period was Crises (1983), which features the worldwide hit single \"Moonlight Shadow\" with vocalist Maggie Reilly. After signing with WEA in the early 1990s, Oldfield's most significant album of the decade was Tubular Bells II (1992) and he experimented with virtual reality and gaming content with his MusicVR project. In 2012, he performed at the opening ceremony for the 2012 Olympic Games held in London. Oldfield's discography includes 26 studio albums, nine of which have reached the UK top ten. His final album, Return to Ommadawn, was released in 2017. Oldfield's label announced his retirement in 2023.^[1]\n

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Award\n	Year\n	Nominee(s)\n	Category\n	Result\n	Ref.\n
APRS Annual Sound Fellowships Lunch\n	2015\n	Himself\n	Honour Fellowship\n	Won\n	^[89]\n
British Academy Film Awards\n	1985\n	The Killing Fields\n	Best Original Music\n	Nominated\n	^[90]\n
Brit Awards\n	1977\n	Tubular Bells\n	British Album of the Year\n	Nominated\n	^[91]\n
Daily Mirror The British Rock & Pop Awards\n	1977\n	Himself\n	Best Instrumentalist\n	Won\n	^[92]\n
Golden Globe Awards\n	1985\n	The Killing Fields\n	Best Original Score\n	Nominated\n	^[90]\n
Goldene Europa\n	1987\n	Himself\n	Best International Artist\n	Won\n	^[93]\n
1998\n	Won\n
Grammy Awards\n	1975\n	\"Tubular Bells\"\n	Best Instrumental Composition\n	Won\n	^[94]\n
1998\n	Voyager\n	Best New Age Album\n	Nominated\n
Grammy Hall of Fame\n	2018\n	Tubular Bells\n	Album Induction\n	Won\n	^[95]\n
Hungarian Music Awards\n	1997\n	Voyager\n	Best Foreign Album\n	Nominated\n	^[96]\n
Ivor Novello Awards\n	1984\n	\"Moonlight Shadow\"\n	Most Performed Work\n	Nominated\n	^[97]\n
NME Awards\n	1975\n	Himself\n	Best Miscellaneous Instrumentalist\n	Won\n	^[98]\n
1976\n	Won\n
1977\n	Won\n
Online Film & Television Association\n	1999\n	The X-Files\n	Best Music, Original Sci-Fi/Fantasy/Horror Score\n	Nominated\n	^[90]\n

v t e Mike Oldfield
\n Albums \n Singles \n
Studio albums	\n Tubular Bells \n Hergest Ridge \n Ommadawn \n Incantations \n Platinum \n QE2 \n Five Miles Out \n Crises \n Discovery \n The Killing Fields \n Islands \n Earth Moving \n Amarok \n Heaven's Open \n Tubular Bells II \n The Songs of Distant Earth \n Voyager \n Tubular Bells III \n Guitars \n The Millennium Bell \n Tres Lunas \n Tubular Bells 2003 \n Light + Shade \n Music of the Spheres \n Man on the Rocks \n Return to Ommadawn \n
Live albums	\n The Orchestral Tubular Bells \n Exposed \n The Art in Heaven Concert \n
EPs	\n Take Four \n The Singles \n The Mike Oldfield EP \n
Singles	\n \"Mike Oldfield's Single\" \n \"Don Alfonso\" \n \"In Dulci Jubilo\" \n \"Portsmouth\" \n \"William Tell Overture\" \n \"Cuckoo Song\" \n \"Take Four\" \n \"Guilty\" \n \"Blue Peter\" \n \"Arrival\" \n \"Sheba\" / \"Wonderful Land\" \n \"Five Miles Out\" \n \"Family Man\" \n \"Mistake\" \n \"Moonlight Shadow\" \n \"Shadow on the Wall\" \n \"Crime of Passion\" \n \"To France\" \n \"Tricks of the Light\" \n \"\u00c9tude\" \n \"Pictures in the Dark\" \n \"Shine\" \n \"In High Places\" \n \"Islands\" \n \"The Time Has Come\" \n \"Magic Touch\" \n \"Flying Start\" \n \"Earth Moving\" \n \"Innocent\" \n \"(One Glance Is) Holy\" \n \"Heaven's Open\" \n \"Gimme Back\" \n \"Sentinel\" \n \"Tattoo\" \n \"The Bell\" \n \"Hibernaculum\" \n \"Let There Be Light\" \n \"Women of Ireland\" \n \"Man in the Rain\" \n \"Far Above the Clouds\" \n \"To Be Free\" \n \"Thou Art in Heaven\" \n \"Spheres\" \n
Other songs	\n \"Foreign Affair\" \n \"The X-Files Theme\" \n \"Introduction 2003\" \n \"Surfing\" \n \"Song for Survival\" \n
Video albums	\n The Space Movie \n Exposed \n The Essential Live \n Live at Montreux 1981 \n The Wind Chimes \n Tubular Bells II Live \n Elements \n Tubular Bells III Live \n The Art in Heaven Concert \n
Compilation albums	\n Boxed \n Music Wonderland \n Episodes \n The Complete Mike Oldfield \n Elements 4 CD Boxset \n Elements \u2013 The Best of Mike Oldfield \n XXV: The Essential \n The Best of Tubular Bells \n Collection \n The Complete Tubular Bells \n The Platinum Collection \n The Mike Oldfield Collection 1974\u20131983 \n Two Sides \n Icon \n Tubular Beats \n Moonlight Shadow: The Collection \n The 1984 Suite \n
Other media	\n Changeling \n MusicVR \n Tres Lunas \n Maestro \n
Related articles	\n Sally Oldfield \n Terry Oldfield \n Anita Hegerland \n Maggie Reilly \n The Sallyangie\n Children of the Sun \n Isles of Wonder\n 2012 Olympics opening ceremony \n
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Authority control databases $\"Edit$
International	ISNI VIAF FAST WorldCat
National	Germany United States France BnF data Italy Australia Czech Republic Spain Netherlands Norway Latvia Croatia Korea Poland Israel Finland
Academics	CiNii
Artists	MusicBrainz Grammy Awards
People	Trove Deutsche Biographie
Other	IdRef SNAC Te Papa (New Zealand)

Early life

Career

1968\u20131972: Early career

1971\u20131991: Virgin years

Tubular Bells

Hergest Ridge to Incantations

Platinum to Heaven's Open

1992\u20132003: Warner years

2004\u2013present: Mercury years

Musicianship

Guitars

Keyboards

Recording

Personal life

Family

Other

Awards and nominations

Honours

Discography

Concert tours

Bibliography

Musical scores

Notes

References

External links

Mike Oldfield

From Wikipedia