Christopher Franke (born 6 April 1953) is a German musician and composer. From 1971 to 1987, he was a member of the electronic group Tangerine Dream. Initially a drummer with The Agitation, later renamed Agitation Free, his primary focus eventually shifted to keyboards and synthesizers as the group moved away from its psychedelic rock origins. While he was not the first musician to use an analog sequencer, he was probably the first to turn it into a live performance instrument, thus laying the rhythmic foundation for classic Tangerine Dream pieces and indeed for the whole Berlin school sound.
After his departure from the group, he founded the Sonic Images record label, a new-age music label called Earthtone and the Berlin Symphonic Film Orchestra, and produced a number of solo music works. After leaving Tangerine Dream, his only live concert was on 9 October 1991 at the Astoria Theatre in London. He performed on stage with Edgar Rothermich (a.k.a. Richard E. Roth) who is also his producer and engineer on all his solo projects and film music after 1990.[citation needed]
Franke moved to Los Angeles in 1991 to pursue film work. In 1995 he scored the AFI short Requiem. He may be best known for composing the music for the science fiction television series Babylon 5, as well as the score of the anime movie Tenchi Muyo! in Love and in 2005 the music for German musical Ludwig² (with Konstantin Wecker).
Tenchi Muyo! is a Japanese anime, light novel and manga franchise. The original series began with a six-episode OVA called Tenchi Muyo! Ryo-Ohki. This original series was created by Masaki Kajishima and directed by Hiroki Hayashi, and it was released in Japan on September 25, 1992. The series was released by Pioneer LDC in the United Kingdom in 1994.
Tangerine Dream is a German electronic music band founded in 1967 by Edgar Froese. The group has seen many personnel changes over the years, with Froese the only constant member until his death in January 2015. The best-known lineup of the group was its mid-1970s trio of Froese, Christopher Franke, and Peter Baumann. In 1979, Johannes Schmoelling replaced Baumann until his own departure in 1985. This lineup was notable for composing many movie soundtracks. Since Froese's death in 2015, the group has been under the leadership of Thorsten Quaeschning. Quaeschning is Froese's chosen successor and is currently the longest-serving band member, having joined in 2005. Quaeschning is currently joined by violinist Hoshiko Yamane who joined in 2011 and Paul Frick who joined in 2020. Prior to this Quaeschning and Yamane performed with Ulrich Schnauss from 2014 to 2020. Schnauss only played two shows with Froese in November 2014 before Froese's passing.
Michie Tomizawa is a Japanese actress, voice actress and singer born in Maruko, Nagano Prefecture and raised in Shinmachi, Gunma.
Rei Sakuma is a Japanese actress, voice actress, singer and narrator from Tokyo, Japan. She is best known in Japan for her voice work in the long running children's series Soreike! Anpanman; her most famous role in the English-speaking world, however, is probably as the Chinese Amazon Shampoo in Ranma ½. Other popular roles include Yōko Sakakibara in Azuki-chan, Mariemaia Khushrenada in New Mobile Report Gundam Wing: Endless Waltz, My Melody in Onegai My Melody and Mini-Doras in the Doraemon 1979 anime series. She also voiced Leona Ozaki in New Dominion Tank Police.
Yūko Mizutani was a Japanese actress, voice actress, narrator and singer from Ama District, Aichi. Throughout her career, she worked with Production Baobab, and was working with Aoni Production at the time of her death. Mizutani was best known for her anime voice roles of Sakiko Sakura in Chibi Maruko-chan, Mihoshi Kuramitsu in Tenchi Muyo! and Pinoko in Black Jack. She also portrayed Excellen Browning in Super Robot Wars, Sora Takenouchi in Digimon Adventure, Leina Stol in Machine Robo: Revenge of Cronos, and Sarah Zabiarov and Cheimin Noa in Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. Mizutani was the official Japanese voice actress for Minnie Mouse, and voiced her in the Kingdom Hearts franchise.
Masami Kikuchi is a Japanese voice actor and narrator. He was affiliated with Troubador Music Office until March 2010. He then worked as freelance until April 2011, when he was employed by Kenyu Office.
Michael Hoenig is a German composer who has composed music for several films and games, in addition to two solo albums, including the highly acclaimed 1978 album Departure from the Northern Wasteland. In 1997, he was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Main Title Theme Music for composing the theme to the science fiction series Dark Skies.
Petrea Celeste Burchard is an American actress. She is sometimes credited as Celeste Burch in the anime she appears in. Her most recognizable role to date is as the English voice actor for fictional character and space pirate, Ryoko Hakubi from the Japanese animated series Tenchi Muyo!.
Space music, also called spacemusic or space ambient, is a subgenre of new-age music and is described as "tranquil, hypnotic and moving". It is derived from ambient music and is associated with lounge music, easy listening, and elevator music.
Agitation Free is a German experimental krautrock band formed in 1967 by Michael "Fame" Günther, Lutz "Lüül" Ulbrich (guitar), Lutz Ludwig Kramer (guitar) and Christopher Franke (drums).
Force Majeure is the ninth studio album by the German group Tangerine Dream. It was originally issued on transparent vinyl. Following Stratosfear, the album developed Tangerine Dream's further evolution toward the more melodic sound they would adopt in the 1980s, with a heavier presence of guitars, drums and distinct musical suites in the tradition of progressive rock, rather than the band's 1970s output of Berlin School.
Tenchi Forever!, also known in Japan as Tenchi Muyo in Love 2: Distant Memories, is a 1999 Japanese anime film based upon the popular Tenchi Muyo! series, and was directed by Hiroshi Negishi. It was released in America under the title Tenchi Forever!, possibly because it was to be the last Tenchi Muyo!-branded product created.
Tenchi the Movie: Tenchi in Love!, also known in Japan as Tenchi Muyo in Love!, is a 1996 Japanese animated film and the first of three films set in the Tenchi Muyo! multi-verse.
The Keep (1997) is the twenty-third soundtrack album by Tangerine Dream and their fifty-eighth overall. It is the soundtrack to the movie The Keep (1983). A limited run of 150 CDs were sold at a concert by the group in the UK in 1997. Virgin soon announced that the album would be available for general release in early 1998, but legal issues with the film studio stopped the release. In 1999, Tangerine Dream's own record label sold 300 copies of the Millennium Booster album set that included The Keep with a different cover.
Paul Haslinger is an Austrian musician and composer. He lives and works in Los Angeles, California.
Mark Shreeve was a British electronic music composer. After initially releasing his early work on cassette through the label Mirage Records, he went on to sign for the newly formed Jive Electro in the early 1980s, and released the albums Assassin, Legion, and Crash Head. His last solo album to date, Nocturne, was released in 1995. A live album, Collide, was released in 1996 featuring his live performance at EMMA two years before.
Canyon Dreams is the fortieth major release and it was released as the fourteenth soundtrack album by German band Tangerine Dream. It was recorded in 1986 and released in 1991 on compact disc and compact cassette formats. The music was written as a sound accompaniment for an eponymous scenic video film about the Grand Canyon by Jan Nickman, released by the record label Miramar in 1987 on VHS, Betamax and LaserDisc. The album's tracks are divided into various episodes and related to the titles of the cuts.
Tangerine Dream bootleg recordings are performances by Tangerine Dream that have attained some level of public circulation without being available as a legal release. The term most often refers to audio recordings, but also includes video performances. Bootleg recordings arise from a multitude of sources, including covertly copied live concerts, studio outtakes, broadcast performances. Some bootlegs have included material from official releases.
Hiroshi Negishi is a Japanese anime director who got his start at Toei Animation, then join Tatsunoko Production and AIC and later became one of the founders of anime studios Zero-G Room and Radix. Both studios would merge operations in 2001. In 2011, he founded anime studio Zero-G. He's also the CEO of Saber Project.
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