Yanni's Biography

Petronio Aguiar

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YANNI was born on November 14, 1954 in Kalamata, Greece, with the name Yiannis Hrysomallis (Pronounced Chrysomallis). Early in his life, he was a competitive swimmer in his homeland and got a national record in the 50-meter freestyle competition. He is a pianist and composer who began his musical career by giving recitals for family members.

Yanni left Greece at the age of 18 to attend the University of Minnesota, USA. After finishing his undergraduate in Psychology, he would seek a life in music though he had no formal training and could not read a note. Using his own form of musical shorthand, he began writing original works. After playing keyboards in local rock bands such as Chameleon, he moved to California in pursuit of movie soundtrack work.

In 1987, he put together a small band and began touring to promote his earliest instrumental albums, “Keys to Imagination”, “Out of Silence”, and “Chameleon Days”. His great success came with the album and video “Yanni Live at the Acropolis”. A concert filmed on September 23, 1993 at the Herod Atticus Theater in Athens, Greece, deemed to be the second best-selling music video of all time, selling more than 7 million copies around the world. This was Yanni’s first live album and utilized a full orchestra under the supervision of conductor Shardad Rohani, in addition to his core band.

After that, he made his “North American” concert tours in 1995, 1998 and 2003-5 each finished in the Top 10 concert tours of the year. Then, he has accumulated more than 35 platinum and gold albums globally, with sales totaling over 20 million copies.

Finally, Yanni's compositions have been included in all Olympic Games television broadcasts since 1988. Nowadays, I think he is the one of the best musicians of New Wage Music.