In Celebration of Life


In Celebration of Life is the second compilation album and seventh album overall by Greek keyboardist and composer Yanni, released on the Private Music label in 1991. The album peaked at #3 on Billboard's Top New Age Albums chart and at #60 on the Billboard 200 in the same year.

Background

Yanni expresses the euphoria of life's greatest moments in this collection of 10 powerful and uplifting works. Like its predecessor, Reflections of Passion, it consisted mostly of songs taken from Yanni's four previous albums. Unlike Reflections of Passion, it did not include any new material nor any songs from Yanni's debut album, Optimystique. However, it did include one song taken from a multi-artist benefit album, Polar Shift.
To support the album, Yanni embarked on a 30-city tour called the Revolution in Sound Tour, which consists of two other keyboardists that will use 35 synthesizers to replicate the studio version of the songs, a percussion section, bass player and a string quartet made up of three violins and a cello.

Track listing

Personnel

In a review for AllMusic, Johnny Loftus called the album "a solid overview of the new age composer's initial work, displaying all of the tenets that have made his music so popular over the years." He concluded that "fans will have most, if not all of the material here, but newcomers might enjoy In Celebration of Life."

Revolution in Sound Tour

Tour dates

The band and concert


Yanni played a selection songs from his sixth Private Music albums for a two-hour completely live and showcases performance of Yanni's music, such as misty-roses pieces like "Secret Vows", "In the Mirror", "Nostalgia" and the title track of his latest release, "Reflections of Passion". Yanni and two additional keyboardist are backed by a rhythm section headed by Charlie Adams on drums, with Michael Bruno on percussion and Osama Afifi on bass, and a string section featuring Charlie Bisharat and Karen Briggs on violin, and Sachi McHenry on cello.