Born in Limassol, Cyprus in 1969, he emigrated to Great Britain 1975 and has lived in the Netherlands since 1992. He studied musicology at York University, and later composition with Louis Andriessen and Dick Raaijmakers. He received a PhD from Leiden University, writing a thesis on concepts of multimedia composition (Imagined Voices). 

As a composer and sound artist, Yannis looks for ways of creating new forms and hybrids of media. In recent years his work has been exploring different relations between words and music through the use of systems of encoding information into sound, synthesising voices, and projected text. The question of how music communicates is a recurring theme in his works. He is often drawn to the relation between perception, emotion, and language in how it defines our experience of sound. 

Kyriakides has written over 150 compositions, comprising mostly music theatre, audiovisual installations, and electroacoustic works for chamber and large ensembles as well as orchestras. Accolades have included the Gaudeamus Award, Qwartz Music Award, Toonzetters, the Willem Pijper Prize, the main prize (selected work) in the International Rostrum of Composers, an honourable mention at the Prix Ars Electronica, and the Johan Wagenaar Prize for his entire oeuvre. 

Together with his regular collaborator Andy Moor (The Ex) and Isabelle Vigier, Yannis founded and runs the CD label Unsounds. He is a founding member of the electroacoustic ensemble Maze. Kyriakides teaches composition and multimedia at the Royal Conservatoire of Music in The Hague. 

Selected works (since 2013): Dodona, audiovisual installation (2013), Lunch Music for three male voices, three percussionists and live electronics (2013), Toponyms for string quartet and computer (2014), Oneiricon, interactive score (2014), A Life Is A Billion Heartbeats, improvisation on themes from rebetiko songs for electric guitar and electronics (with Andy Moor, 2014), Testudo for prepared double bass and electronics (2015), Tulpmania, music theatre (2015), Trench Code, three interactive video scores (2015), Der Komponist for orchestra and electronics (2015), MacGuffin for electric guitar and video (2016), Ode to Man for four female voices and electronics (2016), The Lost Border Dances for double string quartet and electronics (2016), La Mode for piano and electronics (2016), Ein Schemen, a reworking of Johannes Brahms’s Ein Deutsches Requiem for harp, electronics and choir (2017), The Musicians of Dourgouti for ensemble, sound media, text projection and soundtrack (2017), Trackers, multi-channel audiovisual compositions for open instrumentation, speaker installation, visual objects, lights, video projector and smoke machine (with Konrad Smoleński, 2018), Once There Was, suite of eight pieces for piano, percussion, soundtrack and video (2018), Satyr Drama, musical theatre for piano, ensemble and video score after Sophocles’s Ichneutai (2018), Elsewhere for two pianos, two percussionists, audio and video (2018), Face for recorder(s), violin, piano, electronics and video (2018), Hearing Words Written, performative lecture (2019), Val, theatre music for reed quintet and electronics (2019), UNMUTE for three dancers, two percussionists, five metal sheets, Myo Gesture armbands and computers (with Keren Levi, 2020), One Hundred Years for orchestra, voices and electronics (2020), Waveshaper for piano, bass clarinet, electric guitar, alto flute, double bass and five audiovisual scores (2020), Orbital, interactive video score for ensemble (2020), Cassettes for string quartet and cassettes (2020–21), Ask Ada, music theatre for singer, violin, viola, cello, harp, piano, percussion, electronics and video (2021), Now we send you this message for soprano, violin, viola, cello, double bass, bass clarinet and soundtrack (2021), fundaments and variants, generative audiovisual installation for virtual ensemble (2021), Amiandos, CD collection of electronic pieces (2022), Anomia for female singer, large ensemble, video and electronics (2023), Selves for bass clarinet, string orchestra, live video and electronics (2023).