Beer Gertenbach

Beer Gertenbach was born Berend Jan Gertenbach in Amsterdam, The Netherlands in 1942. At a very young age Beer, as he was called, was determined to become a singer and a dancer in musicals. He was educated at the Guidhall School Of Music And Drama in London. Back in the Netherlands from 1964 on, and under the name of Beer Bossu, he was to be seen in quite a few musical productions. He worked together with several prestigious artists of the era, like Conny Stuart and Wim Sonneveld. Summer 1969, he teamed up with singer Jan-Anne Drenth as the Double Swing duo and performed at the Singing Europe '69 song-festival in Scheveningen, The Netherlands. In 1970, at the age of 28, he decided to change jobs and became a sound technician at the Dutch Broadcasting Foundation (NOS). For decades, he was producing and editing radio jingles and programs, occasionally performing as a singer and - one more time - acting in a film short in 1983. Together with Jacques Klöters, he was awarded The Silver Travel Microphone in 1985. In 2002 he retired. Suffering from dementia from 2015 on, he passed away Summer 2018.