[11][12][13] Additional historic sites for Yanni's concerts have included India's Taj Mahal, China's Forbidden City, the United Arab Emirates' Burj Khalifa,[14] Russia's Kremlin,[15] Puerto Rico's El Morro castle,[16] Lebanon's ancient city of Byblos,[17] Tunisia's Roman Theatre of Carthage,[18] India's Laxmi Vilas Palace,[19] the Egyptian pyramids and Great Sphinx of Giza,[20][21] and the Amman Citadel.

[30] He has employed musicians of various nationalities and has incorporated a variety of exotic instruments[5] to create music that has been called an eclectic fusion of ethnic sounds.

[27] Yanni was born November 14, 1954, in Kalamata, Greece,[2] the son of a banker, Sotiri Chryssomallis,[32] and a homemaker, Felitsa (short for Triandafelitsa, which means "rose"[33]).

[35] Yanni later explained that learning English forced him to read each paragraph several times in what he called a slow and frustrating process, but which helped him memorize the material and do well on tests.

[2][28] Yanni formed a band in 1987 and began to tour in 1988 with an ensemble including pianist/singer John Tesh and drummer Charlie Adams, promoting his early albums Keys to Imagination, Out of Silence, and Chameleon Days.

[28] In this time frame, Yanni wrote motion picture soundtracks for Steal the Sky (1988), Heart of Midnight (1988), I Love You Perfect (1989), She'll Take Romance (1990), When You Remember Me (1990), Children of the Bride (1990), and Hua qi Shao Lin (1994).

[40] Yanni gained visibility as the result of his November 1990 appearances in People magazine[41][42] and on The Oprah Winfrey Show with actress Linda Evans,[10][41] with whom he had been in a relationship since 1989.

It included "Aria," a song based on Léo Delibes' The Flower Duet (Lakmé, 1883) and popularized by an award-winning[28] British Airways commercial.

[44][45] Without financial backing, Yanni risked $2 million of his personal fortune in the Acropolis production[5] in a strategy to boost his artistic profile and open new markets for his music.

[47] After negotiating the demands of gaining permission to perform at the Taj Mahal and Forbidden City in 1997, breaking up with Linda Evans in early 1998, and completing a long world tour later in 1998, Yanni halted his music career.

[53] The album Mexicanisimo, released in November of Mexico's bicentennial year 2010, was a tribute to that country through Yanni's collaborative interpretation of its folk music.

[13] Truth of Touch's varied content reflected contemporary instrumental, electronic, and cinematic influences, and crossed over into popular, new age, and world music.

[21] In December 2015, Yanni produced a song, "Seven Billion Dreams," for a NASA video that marked the 15th anniversary of the International Space Station.

[67] Yanni's single, "When Dreams Come True", called a "minimal piano-led" piece, was composed incrementally throughout a 60-date North American tour as a series of improvisations performed during successive shows.

[68] Its first complete live performance was in February 2019 at the Winter at Tantora Festival in Al-'Ula, Saudi Arabia, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

In the 2010s, Yanni's international tours included performances in over thirty countries on five continents, including (alphabetically) Argentina, Armenia, Bahrain, Belarus, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Czech Republic, Egypt, Germany, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Mexico, Oman, Panama, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia,[71] Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States (including Puerto Rico), and Uzbekistan.

[73] From childhood, Yanni accepted a wide variety of musical styles, listening to radio stations from Northern Africa, Arab countries, and Europe.

"[27] In this vein, Booth Newspapers' Jeffrey Kaczmarczyk perceived the eclectic inspirations of Yanni's music to be an element of his success: Yanni's "Middle Eastern and Oriental scales and mixed meters sound just exotic enough to entice his middle-of-the-road fans, but not so authentic as to mystify folks who grew up with a backbeat, so you can't lose it," adding that certain songs "leave you with a sense that you've just heard a bit of a steel drum or a Greek bouzouki or a Japanese koto or possibly all three.

[11] Yanni explained that the 1970s, with its new technology and electronic instruments, were particularly influential at that stage in his career, and that even recently his Truth of Touch album (2011) was started by experimenting with new sound designs.

"[39] Yanni mentioned being influenced not only by classical composers like Mozart and Bach, but also rock and roll bands such as Led Zeppelin, the People!, and Black Sabbath.

"[77] In 2012, Yanni remarked that he has never liked putting art into categories or assigning labels, adding that he always composed music "to honestly reflect the lessons learned and the experiences I have shared throughout my life.

"[78] Yanni took an unconventional path to recognition, for example, by risking his personal fortune to fund historic-monument events such as his 1993 Acropolis concerts, by producing specials on public television, by creating alone in his home-built studio, and by performing many of his own production duties—thus by-passing the conventional music industry.

[10] In 2000, The Washington Post's David Segal wrote that Yanni was "a living metaphor for 'success on your own terms,' the dream of every American with an idea that is either ridiculed or ignored.

"[28] In 1995, The Los Angeles Times' Don Heckman wrote that Yanni's music is "based on sweeping romantic melodies underscored with energetic Mediterranean rhythms.

"[2] Rob Garratt wrote in The National that Yanni "breaks all the rules" in producing music "typically in two modes – poundingly heroic or reflectively ambient.

[30] Having been called a "true global artist,"[30] Yanni has employed musicians of various nationalities, and has incorporated a variety of exotic instruments from around the world from an Australian didgeridoo to a Peruvian charango, to perform with his classical orchestra, rock rhythm section, and electronic keyboards.

[5] His music is described as "an eclectic fusion of ethnic sounds, from Native American chants to African rhythms and Asian harmonies.

"[39] Instead, describing his creative process, Yanni explained that his knowledge of music and instruments and his experience in different cultures is a "primordial soup that comes together and it shows itself and it appears.

"[99] "Officials from the research base invited the musician to adopt the animal, saying their decision was made from the inspiration and harmony that derives from his music.

[31][35][104] Yanni has had a collaborative relationship with the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in its fundraising efforts since the early years of his career,[94] reportedly raising more than $13 million for that organization.