Yannis was born in 1975 in Grenoble, France. He has been playing percussion since the late ’90s. He has studied Greek and Oriental percussion (riqq, darbuka, frame drums) and Latin percussion (bongo, conga, cajon) under the teaching of Nikos Darilas. He has also attended classes and seminars with leading percussionists such as Vaggelis Karipis, Glen Velez, Yshai Afterman, Rowan Storm and many others. From the mid 2000’s, he has focused on the study of rhythm with the aim of understanding its most specialized and complex forms and expressions. In particular, he attended classes with jazz drummer Christos Asonitis during which they jointly explored the application of drum concepts to percussion. He followed his rhythmic studies under the teaching of Nikos Papavranoussis, representative in Athens of the Dante Agostini School, focusing on the adaptation of the well-known rhythmic books “Solfèges rythmiques 1-5” and “Solfèges syncopés” on hand percussion. He also studied the Kurdish percussion “daf” under the teaching of the prominent musician and composer Hesam Asadi and has moreover been involved lately with the study of the Argentinian percussion “bombo leguero”.[expander_maker id=”2″ more=”Read more” less=”Read less”] He has collaborated with the Greek-Tunisian singer Lamia Bedioui since the early 2000s, participating as a member of the band “Desert Fish” in the recording of the album “Athamra” (2015). He was a member, from 2005 to 2016, of the classical arabic music ensemble “Al Mahabba”, along with Nektarios Stamatelos, participating in the recording of the homonymous album produced by Haig Yazdjian. He was a member of the world fusion band Mare Yiem (Angeliki Toumpanaki, Aliki Markantonatou, Dimitris Chiotis, Dimitris Psychas). He has collaborated with Irini Daskalaki (music from the Mediterranean area and South America), with French-Iraqi musician and composer Mohammed Alnuma and with the Palestinian oud player and composer Nizar Rohana. He was also a member from 2014 to 2017 of the classical Indian music band “Ihor” with composer and sitar player Dimitris Roumeliotis and has participated in the recording of the homonymous album. Today, he plays with the Renaissance and Baroque music ensemble “ConAnima” and with the band “Ios” (Giannis Houlis, Athena Chioti, Elias Pantazis). He has participated in a large number of festivals and concerts in Greece and Europe (Italy, Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, etc.) and has recently organized four different thematic seminars on percussion and rhythm which have attracted the interest of the Greek percussion community. He teaches percussion at the Music Conservatory “Thoukydideio Odeio” in Athens (Alimos). Yannis plays a percussion set he has specifically developed for the band “Musaic duo” which consists of frame drums on stands, cymbals and of other traditional percussions and instruments (udu, xylophone, kalimba, bombo leguero) played frequently in a polyrhythmic way with mallets, sticks and fingers.[/expander_maker]