Yanni

YANNI

Born: Yanni Chryssomallis; Kalamata, Greece, 14 November 1954

Genre: New Age

Best-selling album since 1990: Yanni Live at the Acropolis (1994)

Hit songs since 1990: "Keys to Imagination," "Aria," "The Rain Must Fall"

One of the most prolific and high-profile contemporary instrumental New Age artists of the 1990s, keyboardist and composer Yanni spent the decade parlaying a growing cult following into international superstardom. His accessible, pop-influenced compositions, exhaustive touring, and a number of spectacularly produced live concert events expanded his fan base dramatically and helped him sell millions of records.

Born Yanni Chryssomallis in the small Greek village of Kalamata, Yanni began playing piano as a child. After a promising stint in his adolescence as a record-breaking member of the Greek National Swim Team, Yanni headed to the United States to attend the University of Minnesota. After graduating with a degree in psychology in 1976, Yanni began playing keyboards for the local rock band Chameleon, which developed enough of a following to tour regionally and release two albums independently. During this time, Yanni was also experimenting with his own keyboard compositions. In 1980 he independently released his first solo album, Optimystique. Optimystique 's grandiose and dynamic synthesized keyboard music, spiced with drums, harp, and strings, distinguished Yanni from the more serene and static instrumental music put out by some of his New Age contemporaries. The album gradually sold well enough to attract the attention of New Age label Private Music, which signed Yanni and released a number of his albums in the 1980s, beginning with Keys to Imagination (1986). As his recording career developed, Yanni moved to Los Angeles, California, where he found work scoring films and television shows.

Yanni began the 1990s with somewhat of a breakthrough. While he had always sought to wrest an orchestra-like richness and bravura from synthesizers, in 1990 he performed live with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra. The resulting concert album sold well and raised his profile significantly. Over the next three years Yanni released the albums In Celebration of Life (1991), Dare to Dream (1992), and In My Time (1993)—the latter two of which scored Grammy Award nominations—all the while touring extensively. He won further notice when British Airways featured "Aria," a single from Dare to Dream, in a television commercial. In September 1993 Yanni again teamed with an orchestra—this time the London Philharmonic—to stage a concert at the historic Acropolis in his native Greece. Like the undeniably dramatic setting, the orchestral accompaniment deftly complemented Yanni's music, at times adding power and bombast, at others lightly underscoring its catchy melodies. The televised concert became a favorite on the Public Broadcasting Service, and an album culled from the concert, Live at the Acropolis, went on to sell millions of copies.

Emboldened by the Acropolis concert's huge success, Yanni mounted an even more ambitious undertaking: to be the first Western artist to perform at India's Taj Mahal and at China's Forbidden City. Requiring millions of dollars and massive organizational efforts, the concerts were a resounding success and were collected in the album, Tribute (1997). Although grounded in Yanni's keyboard and orchestral strings, Tribute reflects its Eastern settings by introducing ample non-Western elements, from gypsy violin and African chanting to bamboo saxophone. Tribute went on to sell millions of copies, further enhancing Yanni's popularity. Yanni spent the remainder of the 1990s releasing albums and touring at a steady clip. In mid-2003 he released an autobiography, Yanni in Words.

Bringing a rock star's sense of spectacle and grandiosity to a genre often derided as bland "elevator" music, Yanni spent the 1990s expanding the already extensive appeal of his sweeping and unabashedly romantic keyboard-based compositions. A number of high-profile, widely televised concerts in exotic locales helped him become one of the most popular and successful recording artists and performers of the decade.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

Keys to Imagination (Private Music, 1986); Chameleon Days (Private Music, 1988); In Celebration of Life (Private Music, 1991); Dare to Dream (Private Music, 1992); Yanni Live at the Acropolis (Private Music, 1994); I Love You Perfect (Private Music, 1995); In the Mirror (Private Music, 1997); Tribute (Virgin, 1997); Winter Light (Private Music, 1999).

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Yanni with D. Rensin, Yanni in Words (New York, 2003).

WEBSITE:

www.yanni.com.

matt himes