Few musicians have touched the world in the way famed instrumentalist Yanni has. The self-taught pianist, keyboardist, and composer has amassed more than 35 platinum and gold albums, with sales exceeding 20 million. His contemporary instrumentals have been used in everything from television commercials to broadcasts of the Olympic Games to the soundtrack for countless weddings across the globe.
Born in Kalamata, Greece, Yanni has sculpted a sound that fuses together a myriad different musical influences and genera across the course of 14 studio albums and countless live performances. While emerging to prominence in the early ’90s, his dynamic fusion of style and inspiration left critics grasping for a label before one word-weary scribe latched onto the term “New Age.” For Yanni though, it’s all just music.
“People didn’t know what to do with my music because the rhythms I use and the sounds I use, they’re not Western,” Yanni recently explained during a teleconference. “It’s not classical, it’s not really a rock’n’roll, it’s not jazz, and it’s not Middle Eastern. It’s not Mediterranean, and yet all of those elements are in it. So what do you call it?
“So, you know, I think for lack of a better term, some brilliant person in Los Angeles somewhere in an office came up with an idea: ‘Let’s call everything New Age that we don’t know what to do with.’ And they threw everything in there. I want to call my music ‘music.’”
While Yanni’s musical impact has been nothing short of phenomenal, it started from humble beginnings. While attending the University of Minnesota, he joined the ranks of an emerging band called Chameleon, which met with modest renown, mostly thanks to Charlie Adams’s two-axis revolving, upside-down drum set. Upon his graduation from college, Yanni ventured to Los Angeles in seek of soundtrack work.
In 1987, he formed another band with Adams, which also included pianist, composer, and television personality John Tesh. The collective released three instrumental albums: Keys to Imagination, Out of Silence, and Chameleon Days.
In 1992, Yanni released his groundbreaking album Dare to Dream, which earned him his first Grammy Award nomination. The recording featured the composition “Aria,” which was based on “The Flower Duet” from Leo Delibes’s “Lakmé.” Its popularity heralded a sold-out 65-city tour. A second Grammy Award nomination came the following year for the album In My Time, and by then, his music was playing as a soundtrack to everything from the Olympic Games to ABC News.
The composer’s breakthrough into the upper echelons of popular culture came later that year with the release of a live album and accompanying video.
Yanni Live at the Acropolis was filmed in the 2,000-year-old Herod Atticus Theater in Athens, Greece, in September 1993. The concert was broadcast in 65 countries and viewed by an estimated half a billion people. The performance aired on PBS in the United States and quickly became one of the channel’s most popular programs.
With PBS playing no small role in Yanni’s subsequent ascendance to a status akin to a musical icon in this country, he still remains one of public broadcasting’s leading fundraisers. He finds the service’s current public funding issues troubling.
“Yes. That bothers me,” the composer said when asked about the funding crisis facing both PBS and NPR. “It bothers me because I have a great relationship with PBS in particular, and obviously I don’t get to make the decisions. However, it’s highly unlikely that I would have achieved the success or the level of success without PBS.
“The album exploded, of course, and sold whatever—7 million, 8 million copies. If I didn’t have it exposed, then everybody would still be thinking it’s a guy who plays the piano and probably has some incense and a couple of crystals,” he said. “It gave me the opportunity to expose the music, you know, and that’s the bottom line … people have to hear it and people have to see the concerts to know what this is. This is very unique.”
People have certainly seen his concerts—and in record numbers. Yanni’s live legacy is as impressive as any. In addition to performing at the Acropolis, he’s one of a select few Westerners to have been permitted to perform and record at the Taj Mahal in India. He’s also performed at China’s Forbidden City. Along with Yanni’s overwhelming success in both the live and recorded arenas comes a certain level of preconception from people not familiar with his music.
Educating the uninitiated is a crusade the composer is used to fighting, and it’s one for which he constantly strives to better his armory.
“I think touring like I do right now is a good way to turn people’s minds,” Yanni said, “because I know there are people in the audience that don’t want to be there. Somebody brought them there, you know. But I know that they’re going to walk away satisfied. I know they’re going to at least look at this orchestra and listen to this sound, and I know they’ve never heard better sound in a concert, and I know they have to be impressed with the virtuosity of the musicianship.
“Maybe they don’t like me, maybe they end up not liking the music, but I think that the concert itself is magnificent, and even my harshest critic could be satisfied, I think, from a concert like we’re doing right now.”
On May 12, Santa Marians will be afforded the opportunity to experience Yanni for themselves when he and his orchestra take to the Chumash Casino stage. He’s currently touring the United States to support the release of his 16th studio album, Truth of Touch. While it’s an album that sees Yanni return to his instrumental roots, it embraces a variety of international rhythms to weave a soundscape that ranges from cinematic vignettes to something akin to hybrid jazz. The album is clearly the product of an artist embracing his muse.
“I think I’m going through the best time in my life right now,” Yanni admitted. “I have a lot of freedom. I have had quite a lot of experiences getting around the world. I consider myself very, very lucky. I feel as fulfilled as anyone can ever feel. This time in particular I just went for a more defined, more Westernized, edgier sound on purpose because I liked it. I was in the mood for it.
“When I was younger, many of you may know I used to play in rock’n’roll bands, so I let a little bit of the rock player out in a couple of songs, like “Vertigo” or whatever,” he said. “I wanted to kick out a little bit.”
Contact freelancer Brett Leigh Dicks through Arts Editor Shelly Cone at scone@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in May 5-12, 2011.