Son of the cycladitic potter Ananias Toulis, Jiannis Toulis was born in Thessaloniki (Greece), where he began to learn Violoncello by G. Manolas, I. Bianki and R. Dragnev.
He continued his cello studies firstly at the Berufsfachschule für Musik in Bad Königshofen (Germany) with Dr. W. Jacksch and then at the Hochschule für Musik “Franz Liszt” in Weimar (Germany) with G. Vieweg, where he graduate in February 1999 (Diploma). In the same time he studied Viola da Gamba, first with G. Vieweg at the Hochschule für Musik “Franz Liszt” in Weimar and from 1999 till his graduation in the Hochschule für Musik in Detmold Abteilung Münster (Germany) by H. Hickethier (Diploma).
He is mainly as soloist and chamber music performer active with many concerts and recordings for radio and TV broadcasts in Europe and in the USA (WGTE, BR, DF, BRD, TV100).
Together with colleagues from the Ionian University Department of Music Studies, he founded the Ionian Early Music Ensemble and the Ionian Piano Quartet. These two ensembles have a great number of concerts in Europe and in the USA as well.
The Ionian Piano Quartet recorded for the Olympics 2004, four string quartets of N.Ch.Manzaros (World Premier) and another 2 CDs with Piano Quartets of F.Mendelssohn Bartholdy, R. Schuman, L.v. Beethoven and J. Brahms (AMICME).
With the Ionian Early Music Ensemble he recorded a CD with works of G.Ph. Telemann, D.Purcell and T.Albinoni.
As a member of the middle age Ensemble Lirae Cantus, he recorded music of the Greek film music composer Vangelis for the Film El Greco. He has also recorded film music for the films: The Journey (music by N. Platirachos) and FBI Academy (music by Ralf Kubicek). He worked together with many orchestras like: Sinfonieorchester Wernigerohde, Salonorchester Münster, Essener Universitätsorchester, Ionian University Symphony Orchestra, Harmonia Atenea – The Friends of Music Orchestra, Orchestra of Coulors Athens, Komorni Orchestr Lsi Krejciho as soloist as well.
Recently the publisher Panas Music have published the composition for cello solo entitled: «A Funky Exercise» and three songs for mezzo-soprano and cello on poems by the famous German poet of the 19th century H.Heine entitled: «Neuer Frühling«.
He is an Assistant Professor at the Ionian University Department of Music Studies for violoncello and viola da gamba studies. He teaches in the Summer Music Academy of the Ionian University and in the Internationale Musiktage Brache(Germany). He also gave master classes for violoncello in the “Karl Lepinski” Music Academy in Wroclaw (Poland), Toledo State University (USA), Bowling Green State University (USA) and Mahidol University (Tailand), at the University of Applied Sciences of Turku (Finland), at the Conservatorio di Musica «Stanislao Giacomantonio» (Cosenza, Italy) and at the Barenboim-Said Conservatory (Nazareth, Israel).
Along with his educational and artistic duties, he is dealing with academic development, strategic planning and management.
Since September 2012 he is a member of the Working Group 5 of the Polifonia Project which is the biggest European project on professional music training to date, involves 55 institutions in the field of music training and the music profession in 26 European countries and 4 countries outside Europe. It is jointly coordinated by the Koninklijk Conservatorium Den Haag and the AEC (Association Européenne des Conservatoires, Académies de Musique et Musikhochschulen).
Since January 2015 he represents the Ionian University Department of Music Studies at the OMEGA project (Opening More Employment Gates for Art and Music Students), an Erasmus+ KA2 project, coordinated by Yasar University Department of Music (Turkey).