Kristof Steenhaut was born in Belgium. At the age of seven he was "forced "by his father to attend the local music school for music theory-history-piano-oboe and bassoon, which he completed at the age of 15.
Although he was musically brought up in a classical education, this "enfant terrible" means Terrible child, worked on the nerves of his teachers as he always tried to give a pop-rock or jazz feeling to Bach or Mozart.
At the age of 15 he started his first band named "IS CUMA LIOM"which is Celtic and means I don't care. They were playing a range of Celtic-French-Breton and Flemish folk music with an acoustic ensemble of 4 musicians. Here Kristof became a self taught accordion and guitar player.
With this band they won a prestigious competition beating all rock bands as an acoustic band and a deal was made for a first album named RAARLST.
From there he stared as a duo writing his own songs in Dutch with female singer song writer Leentje Bauwens and also this duo won another competition and was add to the same album.
Locally Kristof started to making some name for himself and shortly after that he was asked by the Flemish Skiffle group Stampen en dagen to join as an accordion player. This band started to tour all over the Benelux and made one hit Marie Claire.
The Godfather of the prestigious GHENT FESTIVAL, singer song writer and artist Walter De Buck saw him playing and asked him to join his 'hippie Fanfare"De lochte Genteneers as bassoon player but after some time Kristof had to start and play the trombone as the volume was louder than the bassoon.
This became the beginning of a long lasting friend and partnership between Walter and Kristof.
Kristof started working in Walters quartet and as a duo from 1977 till Kristof immigrates to South Africa in 2000.
In 1979 his big break through came with the launching of his own band:L'EXPRESS CAJUN.
As Kristof was as a boy part of the world famous boys choir Cantate Domino, he had the opportunity in 1970 to make a 2 month concert tour in the USA and fell in love with Louisiana.
So he decided to start up his band L'EXPRESS CAJUN in 1979 and became a pioneer for Cajun-Zydeco and Tex Mex music in Europe.
This band won the international contest in the Netherlands in 1980 and was awarded with the silver fiddle and became the most popular band in the Benelux for the next five years.
They toured all over Europe-Canada and USA and made 3 best selling albums.
With his band he had the opportunity to meet and work with icons as Vanessa Mae-Queen Ida-Ray Charles-Elton John-Otis Reading and Curtis Mayfield.
Kristof became a well known musician as was asked as live musician and recording artists for other great song writers as;
William Souffreau (4 albums)
Walter De Buck (2 albums)
Kristofjan (one album)
Norbert De Taeye (1 album)
Martin De Jonghe (1 album)
and was as a band most asked for live on radio in the Benelux.
He started to be asked as composer for various theatre plays and was asked by top comedian URBANUS VAN ANUS to do the music in his TV series:Meer Moet Dat Niet Zijn.
Kristof went from there also into acting-directing and writing of Cabaret and drama plays.
He started to work for and with International Folk and blues artists as Paul Buckley-Michael Chapman-Chris Newman-Pigsty Hill Light Orchestra-Rick Payne-Les Freres Desaunay-Mick Abrahams of Jethro Tull and Flemish stars as Guido Belcanto-Johan Verminnen-Will Ferdy-Jean Boscoe Safari-Ed Kooyman-Jan De Wilde all worked together.
In 2000 he immigrates to Cape town South Africa where he stayed till 2013.At present he resides in Pretoria South Africa.
Here he worked with Steve Newman(Tananas)-French Diva Daniel Pascal-recorded an album with Afrikaans rocker Alta Joubert and at present is busy working with one of South Africa's greatest coloured vocalists Jenifer Jones on an acoustic duo program.
In south Africa he developed a lots of Cultural and humanity projects for local talented young performers and became the founder of IPAC- intercultural performing arts collective and started a new project in 2013 WITNAG MEDIA PRODUCTIONS where he made a 26 episode TV series named AFROTIZERS WITH A HEART where African icons meet global icons and uplift young Africa talent and worthy humanity projects.
Kristof Steenhaut is a pianist-guitarist-accordionist and vocalist of high calibre and sings in English-Afrikaans-Dutch-Spanish and French.
Websites;
www.facebook.com/kristofsingersong/scriptwriter
www.facebook.com/Afromatic
www.facebook.com/kristofsteenhaut
www.facebook.com/interculturalperformingartscollective
www.facebook.com/afrotizerswithaheart
http://witnag.webs.com
and you can find him on YouTube com/Kristof Steenhaut
For bookings and contact
+2784-7927973
Email:witnag@gmail.com
