Edgar Willmar Froese was born June 6, 1944 in Tilsit (now Sovetsk, part of the Russian Federation), East Prussia, during World War II.
He learned piano at 12 and started playing guitar when he was 15 years old. He enrolled at the Academy of the Arts in West Berlin to study painting and sculpture. In 1965, he formed a band called The Ones that played psychedelic rock and R&B songs.
Edgar was fascinated with the work of Spanish painters Salvador Dali and Pablo Picasso and the French surrealists of the 1920s. Writers such as Henry Miller, Walt Whitman, Gustav Meyrink and Rudolf Steiner were an inspiration to him as well.
While performing in Spain, The Ones were invited to perform at Salvador Dalí’s home in Cadaqués. Froese’s encounter with Dalí was highly influential, inspiring him to take up more experimental directions with his music. The Ones disbanded in 1967.
Back in Berlin, Froese began enlisting musicians for a free-rock band that became Tangerine Dream. The idea was to create something new that didn’t sound like rock, German “Schlager,” or Top 40 chart songs.
At the end of 1969 Edgar met Klaus Schulze who played drums at the time with the band Psy Free. Edgar and Klaus added a third musician, Conrad Schnitzler, who couldn’t play an instrument and produced sounds with all sorts of devices.
In 1970 Klaus Schulze left Tangerine Dream. Christopher Franke, from Agitation Free, joined Tangerine Dream at the age of 17. The trio was completed with the addition of keyboardist Steve Schroyder. Steve Schroyder left the group in 1971 and was replaced by Peter Baumann. The Froese, Franke, Baumann version of the band became the most stable and released many of the essential recordings by the band: Zeit (1972), Atem, (1973), and Phaedra (1974).
In 1974, Edgar Froese released his first Solo LP, Aqua on German label Brain Records.
Rubycon, another essential Tangerine Dream album, came out in 1975. That same year, Edgar released his second solo work, Epsilon in Malaysian Pale.
A live Tangerine Dream album recording titled Ricochet was released at the end of 1975, followed by Stratosfear in 1976.
In 1977 Tangerine Dream entered the world of movie soundtracks. American director William Friedkin (The Exorcist and The French Connection) hired them to compose the soundtrack for Sorcerer. After a USA tour in August 1977 Tangerine Dream released the double LP Encore.
After Peter Baumann left, Froese and Franke experimented with a vocalist and drummer in in 1978, but the feedback was not very positive. Tangerine Dream was reduced to a duo and released Force Majeure in 1979.
Tangerine Dream continued for several decades under the guidance of Edgar Froese, releasing studio albums and numerous film scores with various lineups and with changes in musical direction.
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 until 2006. Edgar Froese later married artist and musician Bianca Acquaye
Many of Froese’s earlier solo albums have reappeared on remastered CDs.