Playing with Fire Musical Entertainment
Events Organisers in Cape Town

Playing with Fire offers excellent and experienced live musicians to make a special difference to any event, wedding or corporate function. With over ten years function experience, ceremony, Playing with Fire offers background, reception and stage music. Playing with fire offers a Jazz Trio, a French quartet, a Twenties Trio and a Balkan/Russian band.

Clarinetist and saxophonist Matthew Reid comes from Durban, where his first lessons were with Werner Dannewitz. He attained his Honours degree from UCT with Leslie Craven and completed a postgraduate course at the Royal College of Music in London. He has a diploma in Orchestral Studies (Dip NCOS) from Goldsmiths College in Greenwich. He premiered and recorded Peter Klatzow’s Clarinet Concerto with the Cape Town Symphony Orchestra in 1992, and his Sonata with Pieter van Zyl. He was the music director of the annual Yiddish Song Festival in the Baxter Theatre for eleven years. Keith Tabisher is a classically trained guitarist who specializes in playing jazz on the classical guitar. Keith has also written a number of songs for guitar. During this time she co-led the Stellenbosch Symphony Orchestra that travelled around Europe, was a member of the South African National Youth Orchestra and was an ad hoc musician for the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra. Her passion for using music to connect, heal and inspire people of all shapes and sizes led her to do her postgraduate studies in Music Therapy at the University of Pretoria. In 2000 she graduated Cum Laude amongst the very first group of South African Music Therapy graduates. In 2002 she co-founded the Music Therapy Community Clinic (MTCC), a non-profit organization that aims to provide free music therapy services to disadvantaged communities in the greater Cape Town area. She loves doing anything creative as well as taking time out to take leisurely strolls in and around Cape Town. He performs in many diverse styles, being equally at home on the concert stage, outdoor festivals and intimate venues. Having tried a few different instruments she started on the cello at the age of She studied in London and came out to South Africa initially to join the orchestra in Pretoria. Her playing in South Africa includes Opera, Classical, Symphony Orchestra, Baroque music, chamber and jazz, in fact just about anything as long as it’s on the cello! Cheryl is also a well established cello teacher in Cape Town. James van Minnen is an accomplished percussionist and drummer, with a deep passion for Arabic, Balkan and Mediterranean music and rhythms. Playing professionally since 2000, James has played in various other musical projects in Africa, Europe and Japan, including Ottoman Slap, Mean Black Mamba, Andrew James & The Steady Tiger, Hot Water, Sirena Riley and Shackleton. As well as working as a session musician, James facilitates and teaches drumming and rhythm in group and private capacities and plays the mandolin. André was a member of one of the SADF Entertainment units as a pianist, accordionist and arranger. He then left to perform solo while completing his studies. He has recorded for the SABC and many South African artists under leading labels such as Sony, Select and Vonk. In the same year he was also invited to perform at the launch of South Africa’s first ever Bollywood film production in South Africa. In Cape Town he has performed at almost all of it’s main venues and also performed in not less than 1600 corporate events, festivals, private functions and concerts country wide. He plays on a true muzette accordion, especially suited for French café music. He distinguishes himself from the rest not only by his high standard of performance, but also because he is totally mobile and moves around while playing. The Russian he doesn’t know he makes up on the spot, and he is an admirer and mimic of the British comedian and actor Sacha Baron Cohen. He not only plays the tuba in Playing with Fire’s Balkan Band but also in the Nomadic Orchestra. He has a degree in jazz piano playing and is currently studying actuarial science at UCT.