Yiorgos Fakanas was born in Athens in 1961. He started playing the electric bass at a very early age and during his teens he started his career as a professional musician. In 1980, he participated in the historic recording of Manos Hadjidakis, “Lilipoupolis”, and since then he has taken part in countless recordings by other composers.

He formed the group Iskra, which was to become the first jazz-fusion group in Greece. Their debut “A New Day” was released in 1986. At that time, he also participated in the EUROJAZZ orchestra as the only Greek representative, touring all of Europe.”Horizon”, his first album as a leader, was released in 1988.

His recordings feature many world famous musicians such as Dave Weckl, Anthony Jackson, Frank Gambale, Mike Stern, Mitch Forman, Wallace Roney and Lenny White, while his album “Interspirit”, which contains music specially composed for the legendary bassist Anthony Jackson, was in the nomination list at the Category of Best Contemporary Jazz Album, at the 53rd Grammy Award.

Yiorgos Fakanas has given many concerts playing his original music and at the same time he has been the conductor of some of the biggest Greek Orchestras performing at very well-known music theatres, such as the “Athens Concert Hall-Megaron”, the “Lycabettus Theatre”, the ancient theatre “Herodion and the “Pallas Concert Hall”.
In addition to composing and performing music for the movies and the theatre, he has founded the “Art Music School Y.V. Fakanas” where he is the supervisor and the Artistic Director of the Contemporary Music Department. He has been teaching continually, over the years, contemporary theory and the electric bass at over 800 bass students, many of whom have become outstanding professional musicians.

As an author, he has written many books on electric bass performance as well as music theory and his methods and books are being taught at almost all Greek conservatories in addition to conservatories abroad.

It is worth mentioning that Yiorgos Fakanas has also founded Athina Live, a club situated inside the Art Music School, where he organizes concerts, featuring many well known, world-class musicians.

His ensemble, Yiorgos Fakanas Group collaborates with artists such as Mike Stern, Frank Gambale, Anthony Jackson, Dave Weckl, Alex Acuna, Bireli Lagrene, Dennis Chambers and many more.

He is also the publisher of the magazine Jazz Fusion Mood.