Ensemble Strelitzia

Durban-born clarinetist Matthew Reid graduated with a B. Mus (Hons. Dist.) in clarinet performance at the UCT in 1986. Further musical studies included the Royal College of Music in London, and the National Centre for Orchestral Studies in Greenwich. His teachers included Werner Dannewitz, Alfred Prinz, Guy de Plus, John McCaw, Jimmy Reinders and Leslie Craven. He won the SASOL Music Prize and the Oude Meester Wind Prize for instrumentalists in 1986 and played in the CAPAB orchestra for two years as bass clarinettist. He played several concertos with the CTSO, working with conductors Christopher Nicholls, Brian Priestman and Omri Hadari.

Matthew gave the first performances of Peter Klatzow’s Clarinet Concerto and his Sonata, and has made recordings of both works. He was the musical director for Cape Town’s popular Yiddish Song Festival in the Baxter Theatre for eleven consecutive years, and founded Playing with Fire in the year 2000, a business which provides musicians for functions. He runs the Playing with Fire Balkan Gypsy Klezmer Band, the French quartet Ooh La La! and a light music trio.

A recitalist and free-lance musician, he has arranged and directed the music for several shows at festivals in the country (“Balkan Fever,” “Rumania, Rumania!” ,“The Clown Jewels” and “A Journey to the Little Karoo.”) As a recitalist he won a Kanna award with pianist Pieter van Zyl at the KKNK for his classical music.

His involvement with Eastern European folk music and Jewish Klezmer music in particular has been long and passionate, starting with admiring the playing of the Argentinian klezmer musician Giora Fiedman. Matthew has attended the annual Klezfest at the University of London. He arranged the music and played in Aviva Pelham’s production of Santa’s Story, which gave performances in South Africa, Germany, Finland, England, New York, Australia and Israel.

Matthew runs the Christ Church Concerts series in Constantia, providing platforms for local and visiting musicians at monthly concerts.

Cellist Jessica Bailey studied from a young age with Betty Pack, playing in a piano trio with Gerard Korsten from the age of nine until fifteen, touring Israel with the Betty Pack Chamber Orchestra in 1977.

Jessica was invited to study with Pierre Fournier in Geneva after leaving school and thereafter studied with Joan Dickson at London’s Royal College of Music. She attended master classes with William Pleeth, and performed in London with Anthony Marwood, Melvyn Tan, David Juritz, Louise Lansdowne, Leon Bosch, Max Baillie and Michael Bochman. Returning to South Africa, Jessica was the cellist in the string quartet Evolution of 4, based in Pretoria for many years.

A children’s book illustrator and artist with several exhibitions to her name, Jessica has relocated to Cape Town after the loss of her husband, SA artist John Clarke, three years ago. She is a passionate recitalist, teacher and chamber musician.

Pianist Sue Paterson-Jones studied at the University of Cape Town under Lamar Crowson and Albie van Schalkwyk where she obtained her MMus cum laude. Her research at the time focused on the application of the Alexander Technique to piano playing and she attended a number of workshops with Nelly Ben Or at the Guildhall School of Music. She was awarded a scholarship to study under Vladimir Viardo at the University of North Texas, during which time she was in demand both as an accompanist and a vocal coach.

In 2010 Sue started a private teaching studio. She has nurtured a dedicated student body of talented young performers who have excelled across many platforms in South Africa. Her interest in performance, pedagogy and more specifically in the building of a healthy technique led her to the Taubman approach. For the past seven years she has received intensive training in this comprehensive system of coordinate movement. She has travelled to the USA many times to attend symposiums and workshops.

In 2024 Sue was invited to be on the faculty of the Stellenbosch International Piano Symposium and in 2025 she will be taking up a teaching post at the university. Sue is a passionate chamber musician and performs regularly in a variety of chamber groups in the Western Cape. She finds particular joy in the rich and intimate sound of the piano, cello, and clarinet combination, which she believes is an ideal setting to explore both the unique sonority of each individual instrument as well as their distinctive synthesis.