Yanni

Yanni, the popular name for Yanni Chrysomallis (born November 14, 1954), is a popular keyboardist and composer. He was born in Kalamata, Greece.

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Although many fans and critics call his music "New Age", Yanni himself has distanced himself from that label. In his autobiography, Yanni devotes an entire chapter to the subject, stating that he prefers to call his music "contemporary instrumental."

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Early in his life, Yanni tried to forge a career in rock and roll, touring with locally popular bands in the Midwest United States while a student at the University of Minnesota. His most popular group was Chameleon, a band that earned some modest commercial success touring throughout the Midwest, particularly in the states of Minnesota, Iowa, Wisconsin, Illinois and South Dakota.

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Eventually, Yanni grew tired of the rock and roll lifestyle and focused solely on his instrumental career as a soloist. Most of early music relied heavily on the synthesizer and received little airplay, except on New Age radio stations in larger markets.

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Yanni's breakthrough commercial success came with the release of his album and video, Live at the Acropolis (1993), which was filmed at the Herodian Ampitheater, under the Parthenon in Athens. This was Yanni's first album which utilized a full orchestra rather than a handful of studio musicians, and his first live album. Subsequently, the concert was broadcast in the US on PBS. It proved to be one of PBS's most popular programs ever, and the resulting album sales brought Yanni's biggest commercial success to date.

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While not fluent in standard music notation, he has perfect pitch and composes his pieces in a shorthand form of his own devising.

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Yanni also toured in 2003 with the debut of the Ethnicity album. He kicked off his tour in Las Vegas, Nevada.

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He dated actress Linda Evans from 1989 until 1998.

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Two of Yanni's pieces (both unreleased) are used for sports telecasts. CBS Sports uses Yanni's "Fanfare" for its coverage of non-major PGA TOUR events and the LPGA Championship. NBC Sports uses Yanni's "In Celebration of Man" for its coverage of all championships sanctioned by the United States Golf Association.

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1954: 1954 was a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar....

Keyboardist: A keyboardist is a musician who plays keyboard instruments. The term "keyboardist" is more general than the terms "pianist," "harpsichordist"or "organist", and is often used to describe someone who plays electric keyboards such as the Rhodes, Hammond or synthesizer, as well as the piano, harpsichord...

Composer: A composer is a person who writes music. The term refers particularly to someone who writes music in some type of musical notation, thus allowing others to perform the music. This distinguishes the composer from a musician who improvises. However, a person may be called a composer without creating m...