Jerney Kaagman received the royal honour for her efforts for Dutch music, which she has championed not only in her role as the director of the Buma Cultuur foundation, but also during a career that included being chairman of BV Pop and PR manager for Radio Noordzee. When she was the singer of Earth and Fire, she also made a significant contribution to the export of Dutch music.

The music industry thanks Jerney

The Dutch music industry was present en masse at the farewell party in the Spant! theatre in Bussum to thank Ms. Kaagman for her many years of work. Frits Spits, Cees Vervoord (Chairman of the Board of Buma/Stemra) and Peter Smidt (policy manager at Buma Cultuur) expressed these thanks in their speeches. The musical backdrop was provided by Girls Wanna Have Fun, a group of women from the Dutch pop and rock scene performing together occasionally.

Frank Helmink is to be the new director of Buma Cultuur

From 1 May 2009, Frank Helmink will be taking on the role of general director at Buma Cultuur. Jerney Kaagman, who had held the post for 9 years, stated in November 2008 that she wanted to stop so that she could devote more time to her private life. Frank Helmink is a familiar figure in the music industry. From 1995 to 2000 he was the director of programming at The Music Factory (TMF); he also presented the programme Heavy Alternative on Kink FM for 6 years, and wrote for the music magazine Oor for 14 years and for Aardschok for the last 5 years. Since 2000 he has been a managing partner at the advertising agency Alpha69 Communications and managing director at Toazted Media from 2001.

Source: www.bumacultuur.nl