Posts Tagged ‘Yanni’

After having just completed his critically acclaimed 50 city tour in the USA and Canada, Yanni returns to Mexico for his first concert tour in over 5 years.

He will be touring four cities, October 11–20, 2009. Here are the venues:

• Puebla Auditoria Siglo XXI 10/11/09
• León Poliforum 10/15/09
• Guadalajara Auditorio TELEMEX 10/16/09
• Mexico City Auditorio Nacional 10/19/09

Like on the US tour, Yanni will be joined by “The Voices” crew; Nathan Pacheco, Chloe, Ender Thomas and Leslie Mills, who will give a new life to some of Yanni’s classical compositions with voices that will leave the audience awestruck. And in Mexico City, they will be joined by special guests José José, Lucero and Cristian Castro.

According to Yanni.com the maestro himself says: “This is the best show that I have ever toured with and I can’t wait to share it with the great music fans of Mexico”.

For our many Mexcian readers and listeners; you can buy your tickets here.

We have previously reported how Yanni’s recent concert in at Nationwide Arena, Columbus, was totally trashed by a reviewer, calling the show “a soup of overwrought sound washing over an increasingly stupefied audience”. But other reviewers have a quite different opinion about the show. Serene Dominic for the Arizona Republic writes:

It is my duty to inform you that having held no predetermined love for Yanni going into Sunday’s concert at Jobing.com Arena, this was a brilliantly staged, wonderfully played concert event, on par with something you’d see in Vegas by some other one-named artist.

She also notes an interesting truth:

But while we remember Michael Jackson and how his music has touched the world, let’s not forget that just behind Jackson’s The Making of Thriller, the biggest-selling music video of all time, there is Yanni Live at the Acropolis. Nine million units sold.

Read the rave review here. The ending about “old and new” Yanni is hysterical

It is not the first nor the last time a reviewer will trash Yanni. Either you like him and his music, or you don’t. You might even hate everything Yanni. On the homepage of newspaper The Columbus Dispatch is a review of Yanni’s recent concert at Nationwide Arena, Columbus, OH. Reviewer Margaret Quamme writes:

Yanni has accomplished what few would believe possible: He’s upped the melodrama on his already none-too-subtle concert extravaganza by adding four supercharged voices. The result is a soup of overwrought sound washing over an increasingly stupefied audience.

But there are some comments that are at least a little positive:

The singers added their own, sometimes pedestrian lyrics to Yanni’s possibly mesmerizing and possibly annoyingly repetitive melodies. Most successful was Nathan Pacheco, in part, perhaps, because his lyrics weren’t in English, and so couldn’t be criticized, and in part because his operatic arias played off Yanni’s simple melodies and basic rhythms, rather than following them slavishly.

Read the whole review here.

Be also sure to check out the comments by readers that also attended the concert. They have another opinion about the concert.

Sadly there aren’t many books about new age music, but below are my reviews of the books I have found about this topic. Two books are about the genre itself, while there are three artist autobiographies.

The international guide to new age music (1998)

The book called The international guide to new age music by Henk N. Werkhoven is the most ambitious work about this genre. The book came out 10 years ago, and no new editions have so far been released. But it is still a nice resource for everyone who is into new age music. It contains a heartfelt foreword by Henk N. Werkhoven, and then a nice introduction to the genre by Steven Halpern. I don’t agree with the selection of artists though. Major artists like Enya, Enigma, Tangerine Dream or Mike Oldfield are not even mentioned here, and they were just as important 10 years ago. It is almost like creating a guide to classical music and not mentioning Mozart or Bach… But I understand Werkhoven’s focus on dedicated new age music artists and labels, as a contrast to major pop artists. And that’s ok. It is still a good guide, because the artists here are indeed some of the finest.

In this book you will find biographies and discographies to artists like William Ackerman and Suzanne Doucet. The parts about record labels and radio programming are also interesting (but a little outdated of course). The included CD, with music by Cusco, Deuter and others, is very good.

Since The international guide to new age music is 10 years old, you can get the book and CD for a few dollars. A good buy indeed. Available through Amazon.

There is also a book released in 1989 called The New Age Music Guide: Profiles and Recordings of 500 Top New Age Musicians by Patti Jean Birosik. On Amazon is a presentation of it (scroll down). I haven’t read that one yet (but I will!) 

Changeling (2007)

Mike Oldfield released his autobiography in 2007 on Virgin Books entitled Changeling. Here Mike tells about his childhood with an alcoholic mother and his social difficulties. But also about how he discovered music and became a guitarist (and bassist) in various bands from a young age. He also played together with his talented siblings, Terry and Sally.

The most interesting part of the book is when Mike writes about the creation of Tubular Bells (no big surprises there). Richard Branson was the only one who believed in this long and unusual album, and he gave Mike studio time. The incredible success of Tubular Bells was the beginning of Virgin Music.

Mike also tells about his psychological problems and the backside of fame and money. The book is not very detailed when it comes to Mike’s creative side, but you get a feeling that this is an artist with a big passion for his work. For Oldfield’s many fans, this book is a great read.

Here is the book on Amazon.

Yanni In Words (2003)

Yanni’s autobiography from 2003 is called Yanni In Words. Here the Greek maestro tells his story, about how he was as a young boy, as a student and later as a musician. Success is never easy, and this was also the case for Yanni. The famous shows at Taj Mahal and Acropolis demanded a lot of work. It is also interesting to read about how he works with music, and it is obvious that he is a hard working musician.

Yanni has never been happy with his New Age Piano Player image, and I agree with him; he is almost like a classical composer. To label his music as New Age stuff is perhaps wrong. But anyway, Yanni In Words is a great read!

That’s it! Do you know about any other books about new age music? Write a comment about it.

On pittsburghlive.com is a presentation of Yanni’s upcoming concert in Pittsburgh, PA, on May 12th. There is a also small interview with the artist.

You can get tickets here.

Boston.com has a review of Yanni’s concert on Agganis Arena last Sunday. It is not entirely positive, but still the reviewer, Marc Hirsh, gives this conclusion:

At the heart of it all was Yanni, smiling broadly amid the pan-global pop music he created in the hopes of making everyone happy.

Read the review here.

Yanni’s US Tour is well under way. Now, for a limited time only, you can buy two tickets for the price of one! 

To see the cities that are currently participating in this promotional offer, go here.

If you want to read a review of the show, you’ll find that on the blog Shake That Salt. It is very positive indeed.

The recent announcement by BT Fasmer about the upcoming Yanni concert scheduled May 13 2009 in New York led to some great discussion with a good friend of mine about the past live Tribute concert program which aired on PBS in long ago 1997. There is a good chance newagemusic.nu readers saw this past televised concert also since it is estimated that a half billion people around the world have watched or heard of Mr. Yanni Chryssomallis. Our discussion wasn’t about the man himself, but of the extremely talented musicians who accompany and perform solos during the concert tours.

Both individuals are well respected accomplished musicians with American born Karen Briggs, often described as the Lady in Red, a master violinist who performed with Yanni for 13 years, plus numerous single and orchestra concert appearances, one album, and movie soundtrack to her credit.

Venezuelan born Pedro Eustache specializes in the flutes and woodwinds section, having two albums and a multitude of appearances with other renown musicians and composers worldwide, also playing a variety of instruments in many popular movie soundtracks. Pedro also regularly toured with Yanni for 10 years. Both artists are diverse and relentless in their pursuit of perfection in their chosen field of music and well worth a visit to their individual websites to learn more about some of the past and present day extraordinary musicians who make up the major concert headliner most often known simply as Yanni.

The official yanni.com website is also a great place to visit for news, the past but memorable Tribute Concert Album just mentioned, all discography and the vast number of live concert tour dates presently available in the United States.