Fernando Fromm-Abrantes (born 1960) is a German-Portuguese producer and musician.

Background

He has been a temporary member/keyboardist of the electronic/experimental pop band

Kraftwerk Kraftwerk (, ) is a Germany, German Electronic music, electronic band formed in Düsseldorf in 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. Widely considered innovators and pioneers of electronic music, Kraftwerk was among the first successful a ...

. He went to the German school in

Lisbon Lisbon ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Portugal, with an estimated population of 567,131, as of 2023, within its administrative limits and 3,028,000 within the Lisbon Metropolitan Area, metropolis, as of 2025. Lisbon is mainlan ...

. After finishing school he moved to Germany and studied music and electronics in

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in the state after Cologne and the List of cities in Germany with more than 100,000 inhabitants, seventh-largest city ...

together with Kraftwerk members Fritz Hilpert and Henning Schmitz. Afterwards he returned to Portugal. He lives in Lisbon, where he owns a music production studio. He is fluent in German, Portuguese and English. In 1985-1986 he performed a few shows as keyboardist of Sandra and her world hit " Maria Magdalena". Abrantes joined Kraftwerk in winter 1990-1991 during production of the album '' The Mix'', shortly after the departure of electronic

percussionist A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a beater including attached or enclosed beaters or rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or struck against another similar instrument. Ex ...

and songwriter Karl Bartos. Abrantes performed in ''The Mix'' UK-tour (10 concerts) in 1991. He can be seen in

robot A robot is a machine—especially one Computer program, programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions Automation, automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the robot control, co ...

ic form in promotional pictures from this period and in the booklet of the album ''The Mix'', in addition to the

music video A music video is a video that integrates a song or an album with imagery that is produced for promotion (marketing), promotional or musical artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a music marketing device intended to ...

for the updated version of "The Robots", made the same year. He also performed "The Robots" live with the band in the popular German TV show ''Mensch Meier''. Due to divergences about the band's artistic direction with the band's co-founder Ralf Hütter, Abrantes left Kraftwerk soon thereafter and was replaced by Kling Klang studio

engineer Engineers, as practitioners of engineering, are professionals who Invention, invent, design, build, maintain and test machines, complex systems, structures, gadgets and materials. They aim to fulfill functional objectives and requirements while ...

Henning Schmitz, who remains in the band to this day. Abrantes is one of the producers of the official music of the Expo '98.

References

Portuguese musicians Portuguese male musicians Kraftwerk members 1960 births Living people {{Portugal-musician-stub German people of Portuguese descent Portuguese people of German descent