- He is best known as the founding member of the rock band Focus as its primary vocalist, keyboardist, and flautist.
- Born and raised in Amsterdam among a musical family, van Leer took up the piano and flute as a child and pursued them at university and music academies.
- In November 2021, Thijs was diagnosed with Covid-19 after being hospitalized during a Focus tour in the UK.
- He is a Dutch musician, singer, songwriter, composer and producer.
- On 13 September 2008, van Leer was made a Knight of the Order of Orange-Nassau for "special services to music.".
- Van Leer was one of the artists who recorded the song Shalom from Holland (written by Simon Hammelburg and Ron Klipstein) as a token of solidarity to the Israeli people, threatened by missiles from Iraq, during the first Gulf War in 1991.
- His father Ed, a Jewish refugee from the Netherlands, was a classically trained flautist and businessman; his mother Mary was a singer and involved in the Sufi Movement.
- In December 1967, during his first year at Amsterdam University, van Leer, unhappy with the course, landed a leading role in the Webster play The Duchess of Malfi. At one rehearsal, he learned from radio and television presenter Willem Duys that singer and actor Ramses Shaffy was in the process of hiring a final member to his four-piece backing band and vocal group for his upcoming theatre act, Shaffy Chantant. Van Leer had seen Shaffy's performances before and enjoyed the singing and jazz-oriented songs. After he called Shaffy and insisted he was suitable for the part, van Leer got an audition within the hour and secretly took his mother's car to get there. Had the audition failed, van Leer later said he would have pursued an acting career. With a performance of "Nooit Zal Ik Vergeten" at the piano, Shaffy was impressed and added van Leer to the cast which included singer Liesbeth List and pianist Louis van Dijk. Shaffy Chantant ran for almost one year from February 1968 for six nights a week, and van Leer was paid 114 guilders a week. A recording of the act was released in 1968 by Philips Records.
- Fter van Leer left Shaffy's theatre group in mid-1969, he formed a three-piece rock band with Cleuver and Dresden, playing local gigs with a set of covers by Traffic and their own material[6] under the early names of Trio Thijs van Leer and Thijs van Leer and the Rebaptised.They also recorded several radio and television commercials.
- In 2010, van Leer performed at a concert with Raccomandata Ricevuta Ritorno to celebrate 40 years of imaginative music.
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