Introducing…

Henk Braaksma, programme maker for World Music

Henk has been working for the Concertzender since 1999 and has a preference
for music from exotic places such as Mexico, Paraguay, Argentinia, Hawaii, India
and Cuba. He also has another strange habit: collecting records. “I have an
almost complete collection of the 78 rpm records by Max Woiski, Maria Zamora
and the Kilima Hawaiians amongst others. And I have played in a lot of bands myself, from the Argentinian-orientated trio Los Folkloricos to The Honolulu Minstrels, who paid their respects to the music of Hawaii.”

Hawaiian gitaar

Henk was already ‘addicted’ to world music long before record companies started using it as a marketing term. “Yes, years ago, you could already listen to music
from around the world in this chilly little country of ours: Malando with the tango, María Zamora who sang songs from South America and The Kilima Hawaiians who made the music from Hawaii very popular. Henk Braaksma I was crazy about the Hawaiian guitaar and eventually learned to play
it very well myself after many years of study. It is a trouble-
some instrument to play
because of the many different ways in which it can be tuned.”

Clone

“In those days, the fifties, they called me a clone because I
was able to perfectly imitate
the Ambonese Hawaiian guitar
player Rudi Wairata. In those days most members of the Hawaiian bands in Holland
had Indonesian roots. The
first performances were in the twenties and were broadcast
on the Dutch radio. And interest only increased following the Indonesian independence in 1948. There were 600 Hawaii-
orientated bands in Holland at that time.”

Advocate

Henk is a true advocate of forgotten sounds and musicians in his programmes for the Concertzender. His choice of music for the programme ‘Exitos Musicales’ makes it clear how enthousiastic he is about our exotic musical heritage. “All the music comes from my personal collection and I love to present it to a wider audience. I started working for the Concertzender in 1999 with the producer of the ‘Fridaynight Salsa Show’. This sometimes led to frowns of disapproval because I regularly broke the rule that was to 'play lots of music and don't talk too much'. My programmes are more of less documentaries and I need
to be able to tell the story of the artist or the group. The reactions from the listeners are positive, so I hope to be able to continue for some time, unless someone decides to kick me out.”

CZ partners