Born in Berlin, Germany in April, 1953, Christopher Franke studied
classical music and composition at the Berlin Conservatory. At that
time he was influenced by such composers as Krzysztof Penderecki, John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen and was actively involved in rock and jazz music.
Together with his composition teacher, Franke set up a sound studio
within a Berlin music school. The experimental excursions resulted in a
project that evolved into the Berlin School of Electronic Music. It was
there that Christopher Franke met Edgar Froese and became a member of
the group Tangerine Dream. He pioneered the fascinating soundscape of
the Moog Synthesizer and the Moog Sequencer creating driving, hypnotic
rhythm patterns. One year later, Franke brought Peter Baumann into the
band. Between 1970 and 1988, Tangerine Dream released 37 albums and
composed scores for more than 30 feature films, including Legende (1985),
Atemlos vor Angst (1977), Der Einzelgänger (1981), Der Feuerteufel (1984), Lockere Geschäfte (1983) and Near Dark - Die Nacht hat ihren Preis (1987).
After leaving the Group in 1988, he released his first solo album,
"Pacific Coast Highway" in 1991. That same year he founded the Berlin
Symphonic Film Orchestra and opened a new, much needed recording studio
in Hollywood as he became a successful film music composer on his own.
In 1993, Christopher founded the record label, "Sonic Images Records",
and subsequently released numerous studio recordings and soundtracks.
He has composed the music for feature films, such as the blockbuster
Universal Soldier (1992), as well as for television, including the cult
Sci-Fi series Babylon 5 (1993). 1997 witnessed the release of Franke's
critically acclaimed "The Celestine Prophecy - A Musical Voyage", a
companion CD to James Redfield's best selling book "The Celestine
Prophecy".
More recently, Franke completed the score to the epic "Tarzan and the
Lost City", the influential documentary What the Bleep Do We Know (2004), the hit-movie Hooligans (2005) starring Elijah Wood and the new Sci-Fi movie Babylon 5 - Vergessene Legenden: Stimmen aus dem Dunkel (2007).
