1966 born in Vanderbijlpark, South Africa. mother Mariana le Roux, a pianist and music teacher, father Johan le Roux, a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church. three siblings - an older sister Marie, two younger brothers Johan and Pierre
1968 moved to Ixopo, Kwazulu-Natal. started to improvise on the piano at three and at five, my mother started giving me lessons
1972 moved to Johannesburg and entered school. cello lessons started at seven. made use of improvisation skills to accompany church songs, which lead to an post as church organist at 10. first appearance as cello soloist with orchestra at 11. joined the SABC Junior Orchestra during my high school years.
1984 two years of compulsory military service in Potchefstroom
1986 completed a three year bachelors degree at Stellenbosch University. main subjects were philosophy and theological studies.
1989 only partially completed a bachelors in music over two years with the distant-education University of South Africa. experimented with being a full time solo cellist and then a full time composer.
1991 the year when all my efforts at a normal career came to a standstill and i eventually decided to make spontaneous music making my entire focus
1992 i soon discovered how difficult this would be and had to rely on street busking to make a living, first in Cape Town, then Johannesburg. during this tie, South Africa became a true democracy.
1995 i sold the cello i had at the time, gave up renting small rooms to live in and packed my life belongings in a backpack. five years of hitch-hiking to different places in South Africa followed, trailing invitations to perform, which for a while were with no music instruments or any propos, just what i could spontaneously express through the most basic of means. during this time, i also produced "he Papers" (spontaneous writing and drawing with black ink on white paper) and distributed them by postal service to subscribers.
2000 the shift came towards buying a car, a computer and basic sound equipment, from which my current setup evolved. in 2001, the first performances in Europe came through my mother who lived in Paris at the time. and a year later, in North America, through my sister who emigrated there with her husband and two children. it set a pattern of two South African tours, a European and a North American each year, only broken by the pandemic of 2020-2021.
2006 Lara Kirsten, with her piano playing and poetry, joined me on the road as partner - full-time for three years. we were based at the Eco Shrine, in Hogsback, Eastern Cape.
2010 met Joke Debaere in Belgium, whom i married in 2015. we were eventually based at Eagle's Ridge, near Stutterheim, Eastern Cape.
2018 Mira was born to us
2020 during the pandemic, we spent our time at Eagle's Ridge
2022 we started touring full time again, but with great disruption due to an ailing vehicle
2023 our base shifted to Bruges, Belgium, with my touring schedule resuming its previous cycles, except for North America (to be added again in 2025)