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All About Yanni

O.k. so you wanna find out about Yanni huh? Well I'm YanniGirl so of course I'm gonna have some info on him lol.

To start from the beginning, Yanni was born in Kalamata, Greece on Nov. 14th, 1954. His mothers name is Felitsa, fathers name is Sotiris, sisters name is Anda, & as far as I know 1 brother living in Minneapolis, Minnesota whom I don't know the name of. He might have another brother that I don't know about... but who knows lol. His family lives in Greece at the moment. The last name is Hrisomallis (they say it's pronounced Chrysomallis).

When he was 18, he came to the United States, to go to college at the University of Minnesota. He taught himself how to play the piano and keyboards. He has said before, that when he only knew how to play with one had at a time... he had so much music in his head and played with one hand, while recording it, and then he played with the other hand. He made a joke about this when he said it & said thats bad & never do that, lol. His mom offered to get him lessons, but he was too stubborn and didnt want any. But he did get some muscial help from some lady (that was also said by the man himself). He then passed college and got a BA in psycology. He stayed for 2-4 more years and played with the band Chameleon, but the band didn't go too well so he wrote his own 2 albums while in MN. After they were released, he moved to Los Angeles, California. He then wrote more albums.

During those times, he got different musicians to play with him (such as violinist Karen Briggs and keyboardist Bradley Joseph). He also had a relationship with a lady named Lnda Evans (if you must know). She helped and encouraged him with his music through the 9 years they were together.

Around 1991 Yanni got the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra to play with him (dont ask me how). There are some songs that he had written that were meant for an orchestra, but at that time he didn't have one. Once he got the orchestra, he took those songs, changed them around a little bit, turned it into a concert and went back to Athens, Greece (in the Parthenon at the Acropolis) to perform it.

Between then and a couple of years ago, he made some mixes of his favorite peaces (or the record companies did) and performed some concerts here and there alongside of makeing a new album meant for the Taj Mahala and Forbidden City, with his new band and orchestra (with 2 of his old band members). He named this album Tribute and is meant to be a tribute to the workers who hand built those wonderful, architectual, achievements so long ago, and to mankind now. Yanni and his band, orchestra and family members went to Inda and China a couple of years ago to put on the show (family did not perform lol). He had it recorded and put on video, like Live at the Acropolis. And then he did the Tribute World Tour. Before he made it here, to the twin cities (my home town), he broke up with Lynda. She was too old for him. 12 years older I think. That's the reason why they broke up, as I was told.

But now the world tour is over. They say he went to visit his family in Greece to relax then he moved to Florida & he's working on a new album now. I hope it's good :-)

Here is a list of Yanni's band members:

Armen Annasian, Conductor, Violinist

Karen Briggs, Violin

Pedro Eustache, Flute & other woodwinds

Ramon Stagnaro, Guitar & Charango

Ricc Fierabracci, Bass

Ming Freeman, Keyboards

Joel Taylor, Drums

Danny Reyes, Percussion

David Hudson, Didgeridoo

Vann Johnson, Vocalist

Alfreda Gerald, Vocalist