Yanni Voices for Mom’s Birthday

When I went to BlissDom ’09 in February I was given the opportunity to watch a preview of the Yanni Voices production.  There were about 250 female bloggers gathered in a room and exposed to the talent of Yanni, his orchestra and four amazing singers on a sneak peek preview of what was later shown on PBS.  I can speak for myself when I say the video was moving, to say the least, and I know I was not the only one in the room who felt this way.  Yanni had never before put lyrics to his music and to be one of the first to not only hear but see this was an honor.  The attendees at BlissDom were pleasantly surprised by this entertainment.  We had no idea we were going to be blessed with a private screening and we especially had no idea we were going to get to actually meet two of the performers.  When Nathan Pacheco and Ender Thomas walked in the room the ladies gasped.  You could hear the sigh of excitement in the air.  Not only were these men gorgeous but their talent beamed from them.  Sexy and talented, come on, what more could a woman want?  They were super sweet too.  They put on a small performance singing Happy Birthday to a few bloggers who were celebrating during the conference and answered a fair share of questions that all the ladies had.  Even gracefully answered silly questions like ‘do you have a girlfriend’ and ‘do you sing in the shower’.  Of course I’m sure Nathan and Ender were loving the attention!  But wait… that’s not all, they then posed for photos and handed out autographs.  Were we blessed, or what?

Now of course when I found out that Yanni Voices was going to perform in my city I was excited!  My mom was already a fan of Yanni and I knew she would LOVE to see him perform in concert, especially with the new addition of singers.  The sneak peek I got of Nathan and Ender made me really want to see them perform live.  You all know from my previous posts that I love live music and performances.  One2One Network expressed they were looking for a few bloggers to attend the concert and tell them what they thought.  Um… hello, of course I jumped on that opportunity!  How could I pass it up?  Not to mention that my mother was celebrating her birthday the same week as the performance.  Perfect birthday gift idea.

We got to the Nokia Theatre a little before the show started and found our amazing seats.  I mean perfect seats, not too close where you are looking upward but close enough that you get the best view.  I was impressed and so was my mom.  I started tweeting live from our seats, expressing how amazing they were, when we met the people sitting behind us.  The man commented on me tweeting and how they were really excited to see the show.  Several people around us then expressed how they heard about Yanni Voices and how they had seen the episode on PBS.  I could related to them, seeing just an episode on TV wasn’t enough.  I wanted to witness this kind of talent live too.

The show started and I got goosebumps. The talent from the musicians and the lyrics that each singer wrote themselves to go along with Yanni’s music was breath-taking. The emotion put into the music and words literally brought tears to my eyes. This performance wasn’t just something you listened to or watched, you truly felt it. The first thing my mom asked was “do you think they will offer this on DVD?” We both know my father would love it. I was blown away by Leslie Mills’ voice and Chloe’s dance moves entertained the crowd. To be honest the crowd was emotionally pulled into the show so much they would yell out, stand up to dance and had actually distracted me from the show a few times. That was entertaining as well. I love to see people around me enjoy a show and you could tell that Yanni was really enjoying the vibes he got from the audience too.  I was pleasantly shocked when I saw Chloe start dancing on the piano.  I had no idea they would put on more of a show than just singing and you could tell the crowd loved it.  It was a nice twist to turn the concert from mostly orchestra and singing to add a little sexiness.  The battles between the violinist made me wish Tapanga was there to witness the talent.  She studied violin all year in school.

After the concert ended my mother and I got the chance to go backstage and meet the performers.  This was an amazing opportunity and not one that many had the chance to experience.  There was no time limit back there either so we got to chit chat and even meet family members of some of the singers.  We took lots of photos and since I already had the opportunity to meet the male singers I was very excited to meet the gorgeous Leslie Mills and beautiful Chloe.  To view other photos from our night see my Flickr set.

I want to thank One2One Network for providing such amazing entertainment for my mother and I.  This was a night full of memories that will last a lifetime.  My mom has already borrowed my Yanni Voices album to listen to while at work!

Tagged as: birthday, BlissDom, Chloe, concert, Ender Thomas, Leslie Mills, Nathan Pacheco, Nokia Theatre, one2one network, PBS, review, Yanni Voices