Edgar Froese

Edgar Froese
Edgar Froese (left) and Thorsten Quaeschning (right) performing as Tangerine Dream in the marketplace at Eberswalde, Germany in 2007
Background information
Birth name	Edgar Willmar Froese
Born	(1944-06-06)6 June 1944 Tilsit, East Prussia
Died	20 January 2015(2015-01-20) (aged 70) Vienna, Austria
Genres	Electronic music
Occupation(s)	Musician, songwriter
Instruments	Piano, synthesizer, guitar, bass guitar, harmonica, mellotron, organ, horn, mellophonium
Years active	1964–2015
Labels	Virgin/EMI Records
Associated acts	Tangerine Dream

Edgar Willmar Froese (6 June 1944 – 20 January 2015) was a German artist and electronic music pioneer, best known for founding the electronic music group Tangerine Dream. Although his solo and group recordings prior to 2003 name him as "Edgar Froese", his solo albums from 2003 onwards bear the name "Edgar W. Froese".

Froese was born in Tilsit, East Prussia, on D-Day during the Second World War; members of his family, including his father, had been killed by the Nazis and his mother and surviving family settled in West Berlin after the war. He took piano lessons from the age of 12, and started playing guitar at 15. After showing an early aptitude for art, Froese enrolled at the Academy of the Arts in West Berlin to study painting and sculpture.

In 1965, he formed a band called The Ones, who played psychedelic rock, and some rock and R&B standards. While playing in Spain, The Ones were invited to perform at Salvador Dalí's villa in Cadaqués. Froese's encounter with Dalí was highly influential, inspiring him to pursue more experimental directions with his music. The Ones disbanded in 1967, having released only one single ("Lady Greengrass" / "Love of Mine"). After returning to Berlin, Froese began recruiting musicians for the free-rock band that would become Tangerine Dream.

Froese declared himself to be vegetarian, teetotal, and a non-smoker; he also did not take drugs. Froese was married to artist and photographer Monique Froese from 1974 until her death in 2000. Their son Jerome Froese was a member of Tangerine Dream from 1990 through 2006. Edgar Froese remarried to artist and musician Bianca Acquaye.

Froese died suddenly in Vienna on 20 January 2015 from a pulmonary embolism. He was posthumously awarded the Schallwelle Honorary Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2015. He was quoted by the BBC as having once said: "there is no death, there is just a change of our cosmic address".