Singer and writer Peter Schaap has died in his hometown of Roden at the age of 78. Schaap’s biggest hit was Breathe my breathwhich he released in the mid-1970s.
The Groningen native started his working life as a teacher at a primary school. But after a few years he discovered performing and chose a career as a singer. He released four successful LPs and received a Silver Harp for his contribution to Dutch song.
In the eighties, Schaap decided to change course again and started writing books. He made a name for himself with children’s and fantasy books. One of his best-known works was The Valley of the Spirits. In 1988 he won a major European literature prize for his book The Writer of Thyll.
In 2017, Schaap released a fifth CD, with his collected works. He died after a long illness.
Posthumus organized performances in Vries about ten or fifteen years ago. “Instead of everything just taking place in the Randstad, I thought: I would organize it in Vries. Artists such as Alides Hidding and Rikkert Zuiderveld, and also Peter Schaap came to perform there.” He remembers that Schaap was always nervous before performances. “He then said to me that he had experienced that performance in Vries as a warm bath. That experience was a reason for him to start performing more often again.”