Yanni Chrysomallis was born on November 14, 1954, in Kalamata, Greece. After having spent quite a bit of time swimming during his teenage years, he broke the national freestyle record as a member of the Greek National Swimming Team at the age of 14. It was also while growing up that he began playing music. His parents were musically-inclined as
well. "My mother sings beautifully. My dad played the guitar and sang...They were both in the arts," says Yanni.
And both were low-tech. "We didn't have a turntable in our house. Instead of listening to the music, we made it ourselves." At the age of 18, Yanni came to the U.S. to attend the University of Minnesota. In 1976, after spending 3 and a half years in college, he graduated with a major in psychology, but quickly dropped this as a career path. He bought a suit, took a job as an employment counselor, and walked out after lunch on his first day.
From there, he went back to his love of music, and at the age of 21, took up keyboards. Around this time, he joined a Minneapolis-based rock band called Chameleon. In his late 20's, the band released an all-synthesizer album.
He eventually moved to Hollywood with drummer Charlie Adams, who he met in Chameleon, and started recording his own compositions for the Private Music label. In 1986 he released his first album, Keys to Imagination. Being self-taught, he does not read or write the traditional language of music - he uses a unique form of musical shorthand which he invented as a child and still uses today: "I started playing music when I was six. I'd go to a movie theatre sometimes and I liked the music and knew that I'd like to hear it again. But where I was growing up in Greece I couldn't just go out and buy the soundtrack. So I'd go to the piano and try to play it, but I'd forget it and then have to go back to see the movie again," he laughs.
The process of hearing the music first in his mind and then translating it for the ear is an integral part of his creative expression when composing. "The process of destruction begins," Yanni explains, "when I take what I have composed in my mind and try to record it so that everyone can hear it. Over the years, I've become a better translator and look to capture performance rather than perfection." Besides not reading or writing music, Yanni creates his own sounds: "I erase all the factory presets of all the keyboards I've ever owned - that's the first thing I do."
