Night Out With Yanni Voices

You may have seen my previous post about my opportunity (thanks to One 2 One Network)to go see Yanni Voices last week, I'm back to tell you it was FANTASTIC!!!

As I mentioned before, Yanni would not have been my first choice of music but, I have changed my mind. Maybe it's because I am older and I appreciate music more now, or maybe it is because I felt connected because I met Nathan and Ender at Blissdom, or maybe it's because everyone on that stage was so incredibly talented, I can't really say for sure what has changed my mind, but I will tell you if you have the chance to go see this concert you really should go. You can see if it is coming to your city here. Going into it my mom had no idea what to expect and had never really listened to Yanni but she too was very impressed and had a great time.

Yanni Voices is the result of Yanni teaming up with producer Rik Wake and some very talented vocal artists including Ender Thomas, Chole, Leslie Mills, and Nathan Pacheco. The 4 "voices" have written words to Yanni's classic songs and they sing those words beautifully and with passion.

Hearing Leslie sing "Before the Night Ends" gave me the chills.



Watching Ender dance gave me a hot flash.



Listening to Nathan sing in Italian completely melted my soul even though I didn't understand one word he was singing.



Chloe's voice made me feel as if I was listening to an angel sing.



Chloe and Ender do a duet called "Mi Todo Eres Tu (Until the Last Moment)" as he sings the Latin vocals, she sings the English vocals and it is amazing how well they blend the two languages together as one voice.

I can't forget the orchestra, they had to be one of the most talented group of musicians ever assembled for a concert like this.

From the dueling violins,



to the drummer,



to the amazing harpist,



one after another the continued to amaze me with their talent. And of course Yanni, watching the passion in his face as he was doing something he truly loves and has dedicated his live to was amazing.



Throughout the concert he would stop and talk and he was really funny too! One story he told (please don't quote me here, I am remembering as well as I can) was about how he and the drummer had been playing together for somewhere in the area of 25 years. They started out playing in rock bands, up until 4 or 5 am after gigs he (Yanni) would dream about someday doing exactly what he was doing right now and he said "It's ok to dream something because once and awhile dreams do come true." Such a moving statement, and you could see in the faces of everyone on stage that they too were living out a dream.



If seeing it in their faces wasn't enough, we got to hear it firsthand from them when we met them backstage after the concert!

Me and Mom





Not only did I get to see a great concert, meet some great artists, spend some quality time with my mom, but I also got to enjoy the night with 2 great blog friends Beth aka Plus Size Mommy and Alaina Frederick. Thanks One 2 One Network!



Links
You can learn more about the artists by clicking on each name

Ender Thomas
Nathan Pacheco
Chloe
Leslie Mills

Listen to "Before the Night Ends" on Leslie's MySpace page

Take Mom to See Yanni Voices in Pittsburgh

Ok so I never though I would EVER be saying this but, yes I like Yanni. How did this happen? let me tell you.

It all started in February when I went to my first blogging conference, Blissdom. On the schedule for Saturday morning was a "special screening", the buzz around the conference room was crazy, everyone had their own ideas of what it could be. Based on the stuff in our swag bags, we thought maybe we were going to see the movie "She's Just Not That Into You" or maybe we were going to see a country music star, after all we were in Nashville, right? Then someone said "there was something in the bags about something called Yanni Voices" Oh no I thought anything but Yanni, I was up late the night before and I really didn't think I could handle elevator music this early in the morning.

So, here comes Barbara Jones to introduce the "special screening" and wouldn't you know it was Yanni Voices. Before I tell you about my reaction, let me tell you about Yanni Voices. Yanni teamed up with producer Rik Wake and some very talented vocal artists including Ender Thomas, Chole, Leslie Mills, and Nathan Pacheco and they put words to Yanni's classic songs. A special television airing was produced and released for PBS television.


Ok, so now the lights go down and the music starts. It didn't take long for me and the rest of the room to be completely mesmerized by what we were seeing and hearing. Twitter was going crazy "who is HE (Nathan)", "wow he sure can dance (Ender)", "she has such a beautiful voice (Chloe)", "love the ponytail (Ender)", "he can come sing to me anytime", "I didn't realize Yanni could be so fun" are just a few examples of the tweets that were being tweeted from the room not to mention all the hooting and hollering actually going on in the room. Within about 15 minutes the room was rockin'and everyone was having a great time. When it was over, Barbara got back up to tell us that Disney had produced this special screening just for us and since Disney doesn't do anything small they had a surprise for us. Wow, it gets better?! Then, through the doors, come the two hot guys the room had just been drooling all over on Twitter! Nathan and Ender!


They did a fantastic question and answer session with us sang for us, danced a little then hung around to meet EVERY ONE of us at the conference to sign autographs and take photos.


Since then I have watched Yanni Voices on PBS something like 5 times and have told everyone I know about it! You can imagine my excitement when I was contacted by One 2 One Network to see if I wanted tickets to go see the tour live in Pittsburgh and go backstage after the concert for a meet and greet! Thank you One 2 One I can't wait to go!

You too could have a reason to thank One 2 One Network because they have given me an additional 2 tickets and backstage passes to give away here on my blog!

I have 2 tickets for the concert in Pittsburgh on May 12th at Mellon Arena and it includes entrance to the meet and greet with the "voices" after the show! What a great gift for Mother's Day!

All you have to do to enter is leave a comment on this post wishing someone special in your life a Happy Mother's Day. Please make sure to leave your twitter id or email address in your comment so I can contact you if you win.

The contest will end on Thursday May 7th at 10 pm EST. The winner will be chosen by random.org and due to the time sensitive nature of the contest, they must respond by Friday May 8th at 10 am EST to claim their prize or another winner will be chosen.

Good Luck!

A special thanks to Secret Agent Mama for the great photos she took at Blissdom that I have used in this post.