Peter Baumann (born 29 January 1953) is a German musician. He formed the core line-up of the pioneering German electronic group Tangerine Dream with Edgar Froese and Christopher Franke in 1971. Baumann composed his first solo album in 1976, while still touring with the band, and embarked on a solo career in 1977. He founded the record label Private Music. Since the early 2000s, Baumann has devoted his time to studying and promoting initiatives in science and philosophy that shed light on the human condition. Background Peter Baumann was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1953, his father a composer, his mother an actress. When he was eight, the Berlin Wall was built, and Baumann entered the American/German Community School in Berlin, where he learned English and was first exposed to American culture. At age 14, Peter joined a cover band and performed at G.I. clubs. Then, in 1971, at age 18, he met Christopher Franke, and ended up joining Tangerine Dream as a replacement for their former organist Steve Schroyder. Two years later, Tangerine Dream signed with Virgin Records and their first album on the label, Phaedra, became a Top 10 seller on the Melody Maker charts. As a result of this and other recording successes, Tangerine Dream toured the world for eight years. They also made successful forays into film scoring. Baumann had temporarily left Tangerine Dream twice, first in 1973 (returning in time for Franke & Froese to shelf their current work on Green Desert and the three to start anew on what was to become Phaedra), and again in 1975, leaving Michael Hoenig as a temporary substitute for an Australian tour. His departure in 1977, shortly after the completion of the band's first U.S. tour, was final and led to a brief solo career. During the 1980s, he founded a record label, Private Music, specializing in instrumental music in a style popularly referred to as new-age. Artists signed to the label included Yanni, Patrick O'Hearn, Jerry Goodman, Suzanne Ciani, and former bandmates Tangerine Dream. In 1996, the label was sold to Windham Hill Records' parent company, BMG, who continue to distribute some of the back catalogue of its more successful artists. The Baumann Foundation Following his music career, Peter Baumann moved to San Francisco, where in 2009 he founded the Baumann Foundation: a think-tank that explores the experience of being human in the context of cognitive science,