Chinese Fan Publishes Book Dedicated to Greek Musician Yanni

While fans of movie and sports stars like paying tribute to their idols in many different ways, few can do what Zhang Mingyu has done for his favorite, the renowned Greek keyboardist and composer, Yanni.

Zhang, 48, is a loyal Yanni follower from Changchun, Jilin province who has spent more than 13 years enjoying and studying Yanni’s music.

Now, his recently published book, Elegant Music and Intimate Voice the Hand Scroll of Yanni’s Music, is a compilation of reviews and interpretation of more than 180 Yanni songs.

It uses 200,000 Chinese characters to do this, accompanied by photos capture the moments, in about a dozen countries, when Yanni held a live concert, such as in China’s Forbidden City, and India’s Taj Mahal.

Zhang first got to know the Greek artist when the Internet began popularizing his music in the late 1990s in China, and says, “I’ve known some vivid life experience of Yanni through his music.”

Yanni’s music has often been described as “new age” by music critics and the media, but he himself prefers the term “contemporary instrumental”, with which Zhang agrees completely.

This September, when the book finally printed by the Changchun Publishing House, Zhang had a chance to meet his admired figure, in Beijing, just as Yanni began a new China tour for 2011..

“With all my respect and admiration,” Yanni wrote for Zhang on the first page of one copy.