YiannisHryssomallis (Greek ΓιάννηςΧρυσομάλλης, GiannisChrysomallis; born November 14, 1954), known professionally as Yanni (ˈjɑːni yah-nee), is a Greek pianist, keyboardist, composer, and music producer who has spent his adult life in the United States.
Yanni continues to use the musical shorthand that he developed as a child,[7][8] blending jazz, classical, soft rock, and world music[4] to create predominantly instrumental works.[9] As this genre of music was not well suited for commercial pop radio and music television,[3][10] Yanni achieved international recognition by producing concerts at historic monuments and by producing videos that were broadcast on public television.[10] His breakthrough concert, Yanni Live at the Acropolis, yielded the second best-selling music video of all time.[11] Additional historic sites for Yanni's concerts have included India's TajMahal, China's Forbidden City, the United Arab Emirates' BurjKhalifa,[12] Russia's Kremlin,[13] and Puerto Rico's El Morro castle.[14]
At least fourteen of Yanni's albums have peaked at #1 in Billboard's Top New Age Album category,[15] and two albums (Dare to Dream and In My Time) received Grammy nominations.[16] Through late 2011, Yanni had performed live in concert before more than two million people in more than 20 countries around the world, and has accumulated more than 35 platinum and gold albums globally, with sales totaling over 20 million copies.[17] A longtime fundraiser for public television,[2][18] Yanni's compositions have been used on commercial television programs, especially for sporting events such as the Tour de France, World Figure Skating Championships, U. S. Open Tennis Championships, U. S. Open Golf Championships, and Olympic Games.[19] He has written film scores and the music for an award-winning British Airways television commercial.[19]
Yanni has employed musicians of various nationalities, and has incorporated a variety of instruments from around the world,[4] to create music that has been called an eclectic fusion of ethnic sounds.[7] Influenced by his encounters with cultures around the world,[18][20] his music is said to reflect his “one world, one people” philosophy.
Yanni displayed musical talent at a young age, playing piano at the age of 6.[1] His parents encouraged him to learn at his own pace and in his own way, without formal music training.[1] The self-taught musician continues to use the musical shorthand that he developed as a child, rather than employing traditional musical notation.[7][8]
Yanni set a Greek national record in the 50-meter freestyle swimming competition at age 14.[16][21]
In November 1972, Yanni moved from Greece to the United States to attend the University of Minnesota beginning in January 1973, majoring in psychology[1] and for a time earning money by washing dishes at the student union.[22] 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.[22] He received a B.A. degree in psychology in 1976.[16]
During his time as a student, Yanni played in a local rock band and continued to study piano and other keyboard instruments.[1] 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.[22]

Music career 
In 1977 Yanni joined the Minneapolis-based rock group Chameleon, working with its founder, drummer Charlie Adams.[1] After leaving the band, Yanni moved to Los Angeles in pursuit of movie soundtrack work.[16][23]

1980s to early 1990s Emergence and recognition
In 1980 Yanni recorded his first album Optimystique, which Atlantic Records re-released in 1984 and Private Music re-released in 1989.[1][19]
Yanni formed a band in 1987 and began to tour in 1988, when he went on the road with an ensemble including pianistsinger John Tesh and drummer Charlie Adams, touring to promote his early albums, Keys to Imagination, Out of Silence, and Chameleon Days.[16][19] 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.[19] Yanni's emergence was said to be timed perfectly with the growing popularity of contemporary instrumental music.[19]
The Herodes Atticus Theater at the Acropolis of Athens, site of Yanni's September 1993 breakthrough concert Yanni Live at the Acropolis, performed in his native Greece.
Yanni gained visibility as the result of his November 1990 appearances in People[24][25] and on The Oprah Winfrey Show with actress Linda Evans,[10][24] with whom he had been in a relationship since 1989.[19][26] However, high visibility appearances on public television, best-selling records and videos, and overflow concerts earned him recognition beyond his relationship with Evans.[26]
Dare to Dream, released in 1992, was Yanni’s first Grammy-nominated[16] album. It included Aria, a song based on Léo Delibes' The Flower Duet (Lakmé, 1883) and popularized by an award-winning[19] British Airways commercial. A second Grammy-nominated[16] album, In My Time, followed in 1993.

1990s Acropolis, world fame, exhaustion and renewal 
From Yanni Live at the Acropolis (1994)
AcroyaliStanding in Motion
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This composition was determined to have the Mozart Effect.[27]
Santorini
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Santorini, the name of a Greek island and the name Yanni gave in 2011 to his symbolically adopted panda cub,[28][29] is a song included in primary school teachings throughout China.[11]
Nostalgia
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At the 1993 Acropolis concert, Yanni dedicated Nostalgia to the people of his homeland Greece, where he had not lived since 1972.
Problems listening to these files See media help.
Yanni'sbreakthrough[4][7] concert, Yanni Live at the Acropolis, was filmed in September 1993 at the 2,000-year-old Herodes Atticus Theater at the Acropolis of Athens, an album and VHS being released in 1994.[16] Acropolis was Yanni’s first live album, and used his core band with a full orchestra,[16] the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Iranian conductor ShahrdadRohani.[30]
Without financial backing, Yanni risked $2 million of his personal fortune in the Acropolis production[4] in a strategy to boost his artistic profile and open new markets for his music.[7] 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.[16][31] It became the second best-selling music video of all time (after Michael Jackson's Thriller[17]), selling more than 7 million copies worldwide.[16]
In March 1997, Yanni became one of the few Western artists permitted to perform and record at the TajMahal in India.[32] Yanni 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.[32] These two events formed the live album and video, Tribute, released in November 1997.[32]
ArmenAnassian, violinist and conductor of Yanni's orchestra for Tribute, conceded that he had some doubts about the artist's plans to perform at India's TajMahal and China's Forbidden City To be honest, a few years ago when he was talking about it, the idea was so amazing. I myself was very skeptical, understandably so. But the truth is, it happened. We did it.[33] Anassian describes Yanni as very optimistic and has observed that nothing really fazes him.[33] That outlook carries over naturally to his music. I don't think it's a goal, per se. He's very honest with his own feelings. His music really comes from the heart. He writes music with ease, the music comes out with relative ease. The feel-good portion of the music is a by-product. It coincides with what the people love to hear.[33]
After negotiating the demands of gaining permission to perform at the TajMahal 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.[10] Yanni later related that he had become depressed, and returned to Greece to live with his parents for three months before traveling the world.[10] 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.[10]

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.[10] 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.[34] He explained that he himself created all the album's sounds, including apparent vocalizations, through the manipulation of sound in his studio.[34]
The music in Yanni's 2003 album Ethnicity represented many of the world's cultures, Yanni saying it uses ethnicity to reflect the color and beauty of a multicultural society.[35] The album was released near the publication date of Yanni's autobiography, Yanni in Words.[35] The ensuing Ethnicity tour would become the fourth largest concert tour of the year ranked by Billboard Magazine.[citation needed] On October 23, 2003, Yanni performed a keyboard instrumental version of The Star-Spangled Banner before Game 5 of the 2003 World Series.[36]
The live album and video Yanni Live! The Concert Event (2006) became Billboard's fourth best selling New Age album of both 2006 and 2007.[37]
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.[38] 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.[38] The album went on to become Billboard's second best selling New Age Album of 2009 and fifth best selling New Age album of 2010.[37]
The album YanniMexicanisimo, released in November of Mexico's bicentennial year 2010, was a tribute to that country through Yanni's collaborative interpretation of its folk music.[39] It involved collaboration with singer-songwriter Pepe Aguilar and singer-actress Lucero.[39] It became the #7 selling New Age album of 2011.[40]

2010s New sound designs, and a return to world tours
Yanni onstage with his orchestra and vocalists during the 2012 An Evening with Yanni tour. While performing, Yanni divides his time among two decks of electronic keyboards and an acoustic piano, and conducts his orchestra.[41]
The Yanni Live in South America tour included September 2010 performances in Chile, Argentina, and Brazil, and a November 2010 performance in Puerto Rico.[42]
The Truth of Touch album was released in February 2011, and went on to become the top-selling New Age album of 2011.[16][40] Yanni's first studio album of new material since Ethnicity eight years earlier, Truth of Touch's varied content reflected contemporary instrumental, electronic and cinematic influences, and crossed over into popular, new age and world music.[43] Though Yanni said that Truth of Touch was started by experimenting with new sound designs,[11] Allmusic's James Christopher Monger said that the album shows Yanni returning to his instrumental roots, and should appeal to fans of his music from the mid-1990s.[44] Three of fifteen tracks on the predominantly instrumental album included vocals from respective Yanni Voices vocalists.[44]
Tour performances in Mexico (January 2011) and Panama (February 2011) were followed by a 43-stop tour of Canada and the United States.[45] In September–November 2011, Yanni toured fifteen stops in Eastern Europe and Asia,[46] including performances in China, South Korea, Singapore, Thailand, Dubai, Oman and Russia.[47] As with Yanni's earlier concerts at the Acropolis, the TajMahal, and Royal Albert Hall, Yanni's December 2011 concerts at El Morro castle in Puerto Rico were the subject of a PBS special, with corresponding CDs and DVDs being produced.[48][49]
The five-month An Evening with Yanni tour began in March 2012, starting in Mexico (2 stops), and continuing to the United States (66 stops) and Canada (14 stops).[50] A South America tour in September–October 2012 included performances in Chile, Argentina and Brazil.[51] The March–July 2013 World Without Borders tour included stops in Oman, Qatar, Hungary, Romania, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, China, and Lebanon.[52]
Yanni's 2010-2013 tours included new vocalists, distinct from the 2008–2009 Yanni Voices vocalists.[42]
Yanni performed in China in the February 9, 2013 CCTV Spring Festival Gala (annual audience 700 million[53]) with Chinese zither artist Chang Jing[54][55] in what was the first year that CCTV had invited foreign artists to perform.