Yanni's Music Is More Than Just The Sounds

Concert preview

Yanni, 8 p.m. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, Paramount Theatre; sold out. -----------------------------------------------------------------

Maybe Yanni should have pursued philosophy instead of becoming a best-selling New Age artist. A conversation with the Greek musician/composer has a definite tone: thoughtful, logical, wise.

For example, when addressing the criticism that his instrumental music is just pretty tinklings on the keyboards, Yanni (last name: Chryssomallis) takes it in stride.

"Every artist has to understand a basic concept: You can't please everyone," he says, fresh off his first cup of coffee at his Los Angeles studio. "There is no absolute right or wrong, good or bad; there are only relative good or bad and right or wrong. So how could a critic be wrong? If a human being is asked to see a movie, read a book, see a painting, and respond to it and it didn't move them, they can't be wrong."

So when Yanni, full orchestra in tow, performs on his current tour, he's hoping to deliver exactly what the audience wants. It is a live concert setting in which Yanni says he feels most at home, where his self-described "emotional music" is best represented.

"I tell the truth in the music; I don't contrive it," he said. "I essentially describe emotions in the music. I don't dress anything up, I don't put vocals on it, don't put a dance beat on it."

True, you won't find any of his songs remixed for dance clubs anytime soon, but Yanni's sound is actually anything but stripped down. There's a trunkload of accessorizing going on in the instrumentalist's repertoire. His latest CD, "Yanni Live at the Acropolis," a recording of his 1993 concert at Greece's Herod Atticus Theatre (500 feet from the Parthenon), was full of dramatic violin solos, bombastic drums and percussion segments and more keyboard flourishes than you'd find in a Bartok piano concerto.

Yanni prefers to categorize himself as a "contemporary instrumental music artist," not a New Age act.

"That label is a loaded term, comes with a lot of baggage," he said. "It is a philosophical view on life, a lifestyle for some people."

He pauses, as if rearranging his thoughts, and then gives the positive side of the New Age tag: "This is the first time since jazz that there is a serious attempt to create good instrumental music."

The music that has turned Yanni into a million-selling artist is not what he was playing at 18, while majoring in psychology at the University of Minnesota. Back then, he spent four years as a member and producer of a progressive rock group called Chameleon.

"I came to this country when I was 18 and rock 'n' roll was not a way of life for me; it was just a musical style that I enjoyed. Growing up in Greece exposed me to a lot of Middle Eastern styles of music, and I got exposed to an enormous amount of classical music because my mother and father enjoyed it."

In addition to keyboards, Yanni plays the guitar and "I don't like to admit this to many people, but I play the accordion."

Most of his composing is done on the piano, the instrument that catapulted him to national fame when he performed during an Oprah Winfrey show in 1991.

Now Yanni wants to tour with a symphony orchestra every time he hits the road. His recent return to Greece for the Acropolis concert apparently has inspired the New Age guru to make them all as grand and majestic as the Parthenon.

"It certainly has been the most successful concert I have ever done," he said. "And I consider that particular place the most incredible theater I have performed in. Just think, 2,500 years ago a human being stood where I was standing and said, we could build a Parthenon here."