Tiesto, the man needs no introduction. He has been voted the world’s greatest DJ and is the most recognisable name in Dance Music. He is a stadium-filling and Grammy award-winning performer, the man behind Mixmag’s second Biggest Dance Track Of All Time, Adagio for Strings, as well as many more dance classics and modern hits that we are all the more familiar.
The two-day event at Sheraton Doha on February 25-26 will witness Tiesto at his best. Better known by his stage name, Tiësto is a Dutch DJ and record producer.
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.
In 1999 and 2000, Tiësto collaborated with Ferry Corsten to create 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”.
The title track is a remix of an original song written by and featuring Nicola Hitchcock. This album 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 2002–04.
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 US and received a nomination for a Grammy Award in 2008.
Tiësto released his fourth studio album Kaleidoscope in October 2009. 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.
In 1994, he began releasing material on Noculan Records’ sub-labels Chemo and Coolman. During these years, he produced hard-core 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. From 1995-96 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 1997, Bink and Tiësto decided to leave Basic Beat and create their own 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 in 1998: In Trance We Trust and SongBird.
From 1998-99, he released music on Planetary Consciousness where he met A&R Hardy Heller and invited him to release some records on Black Hole.
Tiësto later included the “In Search of Sunrise” series on SongBird. In 1999, Tiësto joined forces with fellow Dutch deejay Ferry Corsten to create the trance based duo of Gouryella. He collaborated with Benno de Goeij from 1998-2000 under the name Kamaya Painters. Since November 1999, he performed monthly in Sheffield, and played a 12-hour set, his longest, in Amsterdam.
Late in 2000, Tiësto decided to concentrate on his solo work and left Ferry Corsten to take on the Gouryella project solely as his own.