The discography of the Greek contemporary instrumental musician Yanni includes 19 studio albums and eight live albums. In 1987 he put together a small band which included John Tesh and Charlie Adams, and began touring to promote his earliest instrumental albums, Keys to Imagination, Out of Silence, and Chameleon Days.
Dare to Dream was released in 1992. It was Yanni's first Grammy-nominated album and featured "Aria", a song based on The Flower Duet and popularized by an award-winning British Airways commercial. A second Grammy-nominated album, In My Time, was released in 1993. His music has been used extensively in television and televised sporting events, including the starting grids for the 1989, 1992, and 1994 Daytona 500s on CBS, Super Bowl, Wide World of Sports, U.S. Open, Tour de France, World Figure Skating Championships, The Olympics, and ABC News.
Yanni's breakthrough commercial success came with the release of his album and video, Live at the Acropolis, filmed on September 25, 1993 at the 2,000-year-old Herod Atticus Theater in Athens, Greece, and released in 1994. This was Yanni's first live album and utilized a full orchestra under the supervision of the Iranian conductor, Shahrdad Rohani, in addition to his core band. Subsequently, the concert was broadcast in the US on PBS and quickly became one of their most popular programs ever, having been seen in 65 countries by half a billion people. A composition from this album, "Acroyali/Standing in Motion", was determined to have the "Mozart Effect," by the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine because it is similar to Mozart's K 448 in tempo, structure, melodic and harmonic consonance and predictability. He has appeared on several major PBS Pledge TV Specials such as A Decade of Excellence, including segments from Live at the Acropolis, Tribute, and Live at Royal Albert Hall, London.