Del.icio.usYanni
Yanni, while not fluent in the standard scale notation of music, has the remarkable gift of perfect pitch and composes his pieces in a shorthand form of his own devising.
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."
Early in his life, Yanni tried to forge a career in rock and roll, touring with locally popular bands in the Midwest United States. 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.
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.
Yanni's breakthrough commercial success came with the release of his album and video, Live at the Acropolis, which was filmed live at the Herodian Ampitheater, under the Parthenon, in Athens, Greece. 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.
Yanni continues to record and tour, selling out arenas despite his critics' fervent dislike of his music.