Tiësto

Tijs Verwest, known to the world as Tiësto, is one of the most commercially successful electronic artists of all time. Born in Breda in 1969, he began DJing in local Dutch clubs in the early 90s and rose to global fame in the early 2000s with a sound now considered the blueprint for progressive trance. Albums like In My Memory (2001) and Just Be (2004) and tracks such as "Adagio for Strings" became defining anthems of an era. His 2004 performance at the Athens Olympics opening ceremony — broadcast to a global audience of more than three billion — was the first time a DJ had played that role at the Games and a watershed moment for electronic music's mainstream legitimacy. He was voted DJ Mag's #1 DJ in 2002, 2003, and 2004, the first artist to win three years in a row. Around 2009 Tiësto stepped away from trance, declaring the genre too restrictive. He pivoted into a more open-format sound, founding Musical Freedom and producing big-room, electro, and future-house records. While that move was controversial among trance purists, it propelled him to a level of crossover success — pop collaborations, residencies in Las Vegas, billboard hits — few electronic artists have matched. "The Business" (2020) became one of his biggest songs of the streaming era. In 2022 he was voted "Greatest DJ of All Time" by Mixmag readers. Whatever genre he plays, his name is shorthand for the moment electronic music broke into the global mainstream, and the Dutch trance scene that produced him remains his foundation. Even today, his classical-era tracks fill the floors of trance festivals worldwide.