Greek new age keyboardist and composer who popularized the combination of synthesizers with a full-scale symphony orchestra

Yanni, in full Yanni Chryssomallis, (born November 14, 1954, Kalamata, Greece), Greek-born American composer and keyboardist who was a main figure in overdue 20th-century New Age music—a often nonarousing genre of famous track, regularly entirely instrumental and used for rest or meditation.

Yanni Chryssomallis turned into born into a middle-magnificence family in Greece, and during his formative years his dad and mom endorsed—but in no way compelled—him to play song. on the time, he certainly enjoyed making track, by no means imagining that he might ultimately pursue it as a profession. As a teenager, he was a member of the Greek national swimming group, breaking the national freestyle document at age 14. He went to the united states at age 18 to attend the college of Minnesota, from which he graduated in 1976 with a diploma in psychology. It turned into handiest after his commencement that he started out to attention on track.

Yanni become a founding member of the rock band Chameleon and released his solo recording career in 1984 with the instrumental album Optimystique. although not able to study or notate tune, he also composed song for films and television. A naturalized U.S. citizen, he lived for some time in los angeles, where he recorded for his label, personal music.

Yanni’s popularity expanded step by step from the mid-1980s; his album Reflections of passion (1990) offered millions of copies, and his Dare to Dream (1992) and In My Time (1993) have been each nominated for Grammy Awards. almost straight away after its launch in 1993, the album stay at the Acropolis began to climb Billboard mag’s charts, and public call for for Yanni and his romantic arpeggio-infused instrumental music surged. In 1994 Public Broadcasting carrier stations within the united states time and again aired a ninety-minute unique, Yanni in concert: stay at the Acropolis, at some point of the network’s annual fund-elevating pressure. The television awesome, which Yanni coproduced, elicited document-breaking contributions from viewers and have become one of the maximum popular packages ever proven on American public tv.

Yanni was identified as a great deal for his charismatic degree presence as he was for his track. He normally achieved in all-white or all-black apparel and might periodically toss his unique mane of shoulder-length black hair at the same time as showing a glowing white smile underneath his dark mustache. sometimes, at the same time as seated at an acoustic piano or standing at certainly one of several synthesizers, he would close his eyes and shake his head barely, as though basking inside the electricity of his tune and his target market.

From the past due 1990s Yanni persevered to release predominantly instrumental albums, such as if I should let you know (2000) and Ethnicity (2003). In 2009, but, he shifted direction, collaborating with several young singers who created songs from his melodies and carried out them on the album Yanni Voices. Mexicanisimo (2010), a collaboration with Mexican musicians, featured conventional Mexican songs. every other instrumental album, truth of touch (2011), topped Billboard’s New Age chart. Yanni observed such vocalists as Renée Fleming and Plácido Domingo on Inspirato (2014), and he featured synthesizers and other electronic sounds on Sensuous sit back (2016).