Biography
As a Dutch bandleader and composer during the 1930s, he created arrangements for Benny Goodman and Andre Kostelanetz. His most celebrated work remains the co-composition, alongside Arthur William Halifax, of the enduring "Penny Serenade," later recorded by Guy Lombardo's band, Nat Gonella, and additional artists. Weersma took up piano studies in his youth and performed with Dutch and German ensembles beginning in the mid-1920s. In 1934 he assembled the Red, White and Blue Aces. The following year brought a move to London, where he arranged material for Jack Hylton, followed later in 1935 by a relocation to Chicago that led to further work with Goodman and Kostelanetz. From the late 1930s he lived and worked in Argentina before returning to the Netherlands upon retirement from music.