Yanni - The Renowned Greek Composer and Musician

Yiannis Chryssomallis (Greek: Γιάννης Χρυσομάλλης; born November 14, 1954), known professionally as Yanni (/ˈjɑːni/ YAH-nee), is a Greek composer, keyboardist, pianist, and music producer. Yanni continues to use the musical shorthand that he developed as a child, blending jazz, classical, soft rock, and world music to create predominantly instrumental works. Although this genre of music was not well suited for commercial pop radio and music television, Yanni received international recognition by producing concerts at historic monuments and by creating videos that were broadcast on public television. His breakthrough concert, Live at the Acropolis, yielded the second best-selling music concert video of all time. Additional historic sites for Yanni's concerts have included India's Taj Mahal, China's Forbidden City, the United Arab Emirates' Burj Khalifa, Russia's Kremlin, Puerto Rico's El Morro castle, Lebanon's ancient city of Byblos, Tunisia's Roman Theatre of Carthage, India's Laxmi Vilas Palace, the Egyptian pyramids and Great Sphinx of Giza, and the Amman Citadel.

At least sixteen of Yanni's albums have peaked at No. 1 in Billboard's "Top New Age Album" category, and two albums (Dare to Dream and In My Time) received Grammy Award nominations. Yanni has performed in more than 30 countries on five continents, and through late 2015 had performed live in concert before more than 5 million people and had accumulated more than 40 platinum and gold albums globally, with sales totaling over 25 million copies. A longtime fundraiser for public television, Yanni's compositions have been used on commercial television programs, especially for sporting events. He has written film scores and the music for an award-winning British Airways television commercial.

Yanni popularized the combination of electronic music synthesizers with a full symphony orchestra. He has employed musicians of various nationalities and has incorporated a variety of exotic instruments to create music that has been called an eclectic fusion of ethnic sounds. Influenced by his encounters with cultures around the world, Yanni has been called a "true global artist," and his music is said to reflect his "one world, one people" philosophy.

Early Life

Yanni was born November 14, 1954, in Kalamata, Greece, the son of a banker, Sotiri Chryssomallis, and a homemaker, Felitsa (short for Triandafelitsa, which means "rose"). He displayed musical talent at a young age, playing the piano at the age of 6. His parents encouraged him to learn at his own pace and in his own way, without formal music training. The self-taught musician continues to use the "musical shorthand" that he developed as a child, rather than employ traditional musical notation.

Yanni set a Greek national record in the 50-meter freestyle swimming competition at age 14.

In November 1972, Yanni moved from Greece to the United States to attend the University of Minnesota beginning in January 1973, majoring in psychology. For a time, he earned money by washing dishes at the student union. Yanni later explained that learning English forced him to read each paragraph several times in what he called a slow and frustrating process, but which helped him memorize the material and do well on tests. He received a B.A. degree in psychology in 1976.

During his time as a student, Yanni played in a local rock band and continued to study piano and other keyboard instruments. Upon graduating, when he dedicated himself exclusively to music for one full year and found he was the happiest he had ever been, he said he decided music would be his life's work.

Music Career

In 1977, Yanni joined the Minneapolis-based rock group Chameleon, performing with its founder, drummer Charlie Adams, with whom he would work into the 2010s. While in Minneapolis, Yanni also worked with choreographer Loyce Houlton to provide music for dance works produced by the Minnesota Dance Theatre. After touring with Chameleon from 1980 to 1984, Yanni moved to Los Angeles in pursuit of movie soundtrack work.

1980s to Early 1990s: Emergence and Recognition

In 1980, Yanni recorded and produced his first album Optimystique, which Atlantic Records re-released in 1984 and Private Music re-released in 1989.

Yanni formed a band in 1987 and began to tour in 1988 with an ensemble including pianist/singer John Tesh and drummer Charlie Adams, promoting his early albums Keys to Imagination, Out of Silence, and Chameleon Days. A highlight of the tour was a performance with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra that elicited a positive review, considered seminal to Yanni's public recognition, from a Dallas Times Herald critic. Yanni's emergence was said to be "timed perfectly" with the growing popularity of contemporary instrumental music. During this time, Yanni wrote motion picture soundtracks for Steal the Sky (1988), Heart of Midnight (1988), I Love You Perfect (1989), She'll Take Romance (1990), When You Remember Me (1990), Children of the Bride (1990), and Hua qi Shao Lin (1994).

Yanni gained visibility as a result of his November 1990 appearances in People magazine and on The Oprah Winfrey Show with actress Linda Evans, with whom he had been in a relationship since 1989. However, high-visibility appearances on public television, best-selling records and videos, and overflow concerts earned him recognition beyond his relationship with Evans.

Dare to Dream, released in 1992, was Yanni's first Grammy-nominated album. It included "Aria," a song based on Léo Delibes' The Flower Duet (Lakmé, 1883) and popularized by an award-winning British Airways commercial. A second Grammy-nominated album, In My Time, followed in 1993.

1990s: Acropolis, World Concerts, Exhaustion and Renewal

Yanni's breakthrough concert, Live at the Acropolis, was filmed in September 1993 at the 2,000-year-old Herodes Atticus Theater at the Acropolis of Athens, with an album, VHS, and Laserdisc being released in 1994. Acropolis was Yanni's first live album, featuring his core band with a full sixty-piece orchestra, the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, arranged and conducted by Iranian-American musician Shahrdad Rohani.

Without financial backing, Yanni risked $2 million of his personal fortune in the Acropolis production in a strategy to boost his artistic profile and open new markets for his music. The resulting video was broadcast on PBS and became one of its most popular programs ever, seen in 65 countries by half a billion people. It became the second best-selling music concert video of all time, selling more than 7 million copies worldwide.

In March 1997, Yanni became one of the few Western artists permitted to perform and record at the Taj Mahal in India. He followed in May 1997 with performances at the Forbidden City in Beijing, China, becoming the first Western artist in modern times permitted to perform at the historic site. Live broadcasts of the two concerts were seen by 100 million television viewers throughout the world. The two events formed the live album and video, Tribute, released in November 1997.

After negotiating the demands of gaining permission to perform at the Taj Mahal and Forbidden City in 1997, breaking up with Linda Evans in early 1998, and completing a long world tour later in 1998, Yanni halted his music career. He later related that he had become depressed and returned to Greece to live with his parents for three months before traveling the world. He didn't do an interview for two years, later explaining, "I traveled. I wanted to see other people's ideas of life, get out of the American dream."

2000s to 2010: After a Hiatus, New Perspectives

In 2000, after the two-year hiatus, Yanni released If I Could Tell You, his first studio album in seven years. The album sold 55,000 copies in its first week and landed at No. 20 on the Billboard charts, his highest debut to date. Yanni described the album as more of an even-tempered "listening" album, less dramatic than the live concert albums Live at the Acropolis or Tribute. He explained that he himself created all the album's sounds, including apparent vocalizations, through the manipulation of sound in his studio.

The music in Yanni's 2003 album Ethnicity represented many of the world's cultures, with Yanni saying it uses ethnicity to reflect the color and beauty of a multicultural society. The album was released near the publication date of Yanni's autobiography, Yanni in Words. On October 23, 2003, Yanni performed a keyboard instrumental version of The Star-Spangled Banner before Game 5 of the 2003 World Series.

For the first time in his career, Yanni brought vocalists to the forefront in the Ric Wake collaboration Yanni Voices, the artist's first studio album in six years. PBS broadcast video of a November 2008 Voices Acapulco concert weeks before the album's March 24, 2009 release by Walt Disney Records' Disney Pearl Imprint, the album release preceding a tour produced by Pearl's Buena Vista Concerts division.

The album Mexicanisimo, released in November of Mexico's bic entennial year 2010, was a tribute to that country through Yanni's collaborative interpretation of its folk music. It involved collaboration with singer-songwriter Pepe Aguilar and singer-actress Lucero.

2010s: New Sound Designs and a Return to World Tours

Yanni's Truth of Touch album was released in February 2011, marking his first studio album of new material since Ethnicity eight years earlier. The varied content of Truth of Touch reflected contemporary instrumental, electronic, and cinematic influences, crossing over into popular, new age, and world music. Allmusic's James Christopher Monger noted that the album shows Yanni returning to his instrumental roots, appealing to fans of his music from the mid-1990s. Three of the fifteen tracks on the predominantly instrumental album included vocals from respective Yanni Voices vocalists.

In April 2012, Yanni released the Live at El Morro, Puerto Rico live album CD and DVD, recorded and filmed at two outdoor concerts on December 16 and 17, 2011, at the Castillo San Felipe del Morro, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The recorded concerts were broadcast on PBS beginning in March 2012, constituting Yanni's tenth collaboration with that organization.

Yanni performed again in China during the February 9, 2013, CCTV Spring Festival Gala, marking the first year that CCTV invited foreign artists to perform. For this performance, Yanni released a single titled "East Meets West," a mashup of several of his famous songs combined with a solo part performed on Chinese zither.

Yanni's 2010s tours included new vocalists distinct from the 2008–2009 Yanni Voices vocalists, although the setlists remained predominantly instrumental. In March 2014, Yanni released his seventeenth studio album, Inspirato, a collaboration with operatic tenor Plácido Domingo and producer Ric Wake, highlighting vocal performances of songs Yanni had previously released over his career, predominantly in Italian.

On October 30 and 31, 2015, Yanni performed two concerts on the grounds of the Egyptian pyramids and Great Sphinx of Giza, marking his first performance in Egypt. The concerts included fireworks and a video broadcast from International Space Station commander Scott Kelly, recorded in 4K HD for subsequent broadcast on PBS. To convey an image of stable security after the Egyptian Crisis, an Egyptian security force of 3,000 people secured the concert area.

In December 2015, Yanni produced a song, "Seven Billion Dreams," for a NASA video marking the 15th anniversary of the International Space Station. On December 18, 2015, he released the single "Desert Soul" from his eighteenth studio album, Sensuous Chill, which was released on January 29, 2016. This album, built around synthesizers, programmed rhythms, and electronic sounds, was said to "come full circle" to his early-1980s albums.

Yanni's single, "When Dreams Come True," was composed incrementally throughout a 60-date North American tour as a series of improvisations performed during successive shows. Its first complete live performance was in February 2019 at the Winter at Tantora Festival in Al-'Ula, Saudi Arabia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In August 2019, Yanni released a single honoring his daughter Krystalán, titled "Ladyhawk," alluding to how she watches over him like a guardian angel. In November 2019, he released the single "Blue," inspired by the ocean.

In the 2010s, Yanni's international tours included performances in over thirty countries on five continents, including Argentina, Armenia, Bahrain, Belarus, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Egypt, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mexico, Oman, Panama, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States (including Puerto Rico), and Uzbekistan.

2020s

In August 2020, Yanni released his nineteenth studio album, In His Purest Form, containing solo piano performances of his previously released songs, marking his first piano solo album since In My Time (1993). In late 2021, Yanni began to offer non-fungible tokens.

Influences, Music, and Concerts

Musical Influences

From childhood, Yanni embraced a wide variety of musical styles, listening to radio stations from Northern Africa, Arab countries, and Europe. He observed that "there were no rock stations or classical stations—each station would just play everything." Yanni's music reflects his encounters with cultures around the world and embodies his philosophy of "one world, one people." His eclectic inspirations have been perceived as a key element of his success, as his music incorporates Middle Eastern and Oriental scales and mixed meters that appeal to a broad audience without being overly authentic to any single culture.

Yanni's musical influences include a diverse range of genres, from classical to rock and roll, and he cites composers like Beethoven and Chopin as significant inspirations. He has also expressed admiration for rock bands such as Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath. His experiences in film scoring have shaped his approach to music, allowing him to create emotionally resonant instrumental pieces that transcend language barriers.

Concerts and Live Performances

Yanni's concerts are renowned for their stunning visual presentations, featuring elaborate lighting and technical effects that enhance the musical experience. He often performs with a full orchestra, blending electronic music synthesizers with traditional orchestral instruments. His performances are characterized by a dynamic range, moving from powerful, energetic pieces to more reflective, ambient compositions.

Yanni has performed at some of the world's most iconic venues, including the Acropolis in Athens, the Taj Mahal in India, and the Forbidden City in Beijing. His concerts often draw large audiences, and he has been known to engage with fans through Q&A sessions and intimate performances.

Honors, Awards, and Distinctions

Throughout his career, Yanni has received numerous accolades, including Grammy nominations and recognition as one of the top new age album artists by Billboard. His music has been featured in various television shows and sporting events, further solidifying his status as a prominent figure in contemporary instrumental music.

Yanni's philanthropic efforts include fundraising for public television and supporting conservation initiatives through organizations like the World Wildlife Fund. His commitment to humanitarian causes is evident in his choice to perform in regions affected by conflict, using music as a means of promoting peace and unity.

Conclusion

Yanni's unique blend of musical styles, innovative performances, and dedication to his craft have established him as a leading figure in the world of contemporary instrumental music. His ability to connect with audiences across cultures and his commitment to artistic integrity continue to inspire fans around the globe. As he moves forward in his career, Yanni remains a true global artist, embodying the philosophy of "one world, one people" through his music.

Listen to Yanni's Albums in Lossless Audio via Streaming: HERE