The urbane figure in the snappy suit could pass as a banker. After all, we are meeting in the heart of Sandton's financial district. But no, Piers Maxim is a musician to the core.
The Brussels-based conductor interrupted The Magic Flute rehearsals in Cape Town to fly to Johannesburg for a media briefing and to work with the ad hoc choir for the Johannesburg Civic Theatre run of William Kentridge's acclaimed production of the Mozart opera.
When this Englishman, the son of two actors who started his musical ventures as a boy chorister at St Paul's cathedral, looked around the Artscape rehearsal room for the first time, he realised he was the only non-South African present.
That was only one of several surprises Maxim has experienced since the very first day he and the production's original conductor, René Jacobs (whom he assisted), met William Kentridge in November 2004 in Paris. The Magic Flute was commissioned by Belgium's La Monnaie opera house.
"It was extraordinary, because William turned up (with a stop watch) and had basically done all the drawings and projections.
"I actually played through the whole opera so he could sort out the timing for the projections. Fascinating. I must say, for us it was an eye-opener. We weren't to open for five or six months and here it was. I played through Papageno's big aria and he played it on a little computer, exactly what we now see. He had done so much in advance. It was unusual."
After conducting two performances in the original 2005 season and then revivals in Brussels (he didn't go to France, Italy or Israel) Kentridge's Magic Flute marked Maxim's American conducting début. How was New York? "Very interesting.
We had an exciting time at the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). Of course, William is fêted in New York - as a visual artist and his Il Ritorno d'Ulisse (his first La Monnaie commission) was also performed at BAM. The critical reaction was mixed."
The purists took umbrage? "Possibly, because there's no doubt I come from a different musical concept to the traditional early 20th century, which is slow and portentous.
"It stems from my work with René Jacobs, I have assisted him for 10 or 12 years. Mozart grew up during this period of Baroque music. He didn't play Beethoven or Wagner. And so we tended to try and get a bit more clarity. Tempi tended to be a bit faster.
"I grew up with Klemperer recordings, which are incredibly sincere, but you will be surprised to hear the tempi I do."
A demonstration of a shortened adagio in the overture was interrupted by a call from his wife, to check if he had arrived safely in the notorious city. Maxim's family, with three young daughters, have been holidaying in, and falling in love with, Cape Town since the end of July.
"I'm trying to see what Mozart meant. Actually, notation is famously not really so tight. A minute - what does it mean?
"In Mozart that doesn't necessarily mean you play for the full length. It makes a lot of sense because again the Baroque is about the beginning of the note rather than the end of the note."
Which brings up the layman's question of the conductor versus the director. "Of course there's leeway. There's no question this is William's'production, but when it comes to any power struggle between director and conductor, I bow to William.
The one thing slightly different on William's take on this opera, and perhaps opera in general, is when he uses projections there is a sort of set timing which I have to keep to.
Having said that, there is this very clever lady who is sitting with various mice (of the computer kind) and she can slow it, that's easier than speeding it up. She sits in the lighting box watching me and all the cues."
South African audiences will be treated to some additional imagery taken from Kentridge's The Black Box/Chambre Noire exhibition commissioned by Deutsche Guggenheim (presented by the Johannesburg Art Gallery last year), which incorporates themes from The Magic Flute. Now the dancing rhino goes operatic.
The mention of animals reminds Maxim, who is also Chef Des Choeurs at La Monnaie, of the very first opera he conducted when he was studying at Cambridge.
"It was The Magic Flute and, I'm ashamed to say, we used hand puppets through a hole. We thought: How could we get animals on stage with no budget? Of course, it was a giggle factor to the nth degree." He's still laughing.
More seriously, the principal singers are all homegrown, if from abroad: "We're bringing people back and hope there is some trickle down showing the artists here what can be achieved."
Musa Nkuna (Tamino) is based at the Cologne opera house; Botswana-born soprano, Angela Kerrison (Pamino), is with the International Zurich Studio; Kaiser Nkosi (Sarastro) has been in this production since Brussels and Theo Magongoma (Papageno) has been studying in Texas.
In Cape Town, the Queen of the Night is shared by Marion Roberts and Angela Gilbert, who arrives from the United States.
Surprisingly, the stigma of elitism associated here with opera is not new to him. "I experienced that in Britain as I grew up. One of the most inspiring talks I've ever seen was Tom Allen, the great British baritone, who said: 'Don't be scared of this word elite, it is not necessarily a negative thing. Strive to be the best'. Of course, opera is also culture. William's Magic Flute is South African."
Some of that Mzansi magic has already rubbed off on Maxim, who is clearly enchanted with the cultural chutzpah and wealth of vocal talent.