Frans de Kok

Frans de Kok (born January 18, 1924) is a Dutch conductor of various television orchestras who had his heyday in the 1960s.

Born in Tilburg, Frans de Kok taught himself to play the piano, the accordion and the bass. In the 1940s and 1950s he played and arranged music for the Joe Andy Orchestra, which toured the Netherlands, West Germany and Switzerland with considerable success. From 1957 onwards he worked in various capacities for Dutch television. In 1962, he was asked by TV host and singer Rudi Carrell to accompany his shows with a big orchestra. In the years after, De Kok wrote the arrangements for Carrell's shows and many more tv programmes. Moreover, he worked with a couple of famous Dutch artists in the recording studio, amongst others Boudewijn de Groot. In 1969 he stepped in for Dolf van der Linden, when the latter refused to go to Spain to conduct the orchestra for the Dutch entry in the Eurovision Song Contest. De Kok thus helped Lenny Kuhr winning the contest with her song "De troubadour".

Around the same time, De Kok decided to withdraw from his broadcasting work. He set up a business of record stores in the Netherlands. Later he specialized in computer software. Nowadays, Frans de Kok lives in Belgium. [ Interview with Frans de Kok, published in EA-Nieuws (www.eurovisionartists.nl), 2007.]

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