‘Composing is always the way of finding yourself’

Mundoclásico.com meets Johannes Kalitzke in his dressing-room in the new Casa da Música auditorium of Porto (Portugal), a wonderful building by Rem Koolhaas, in which we listened tonight a fantastic concert with pieces by Lachenmann, Pope and Staud (see concert review). Very tired, after four hours of rehearsals and a high demanding performance, in which was included the Portuguese premiere of Lachenmann’s Concertini, the German conductor and composer (Köln, 1959) talks very kindly with us about music, performers, composition and public, with generous explanations and a deep point of view in all the topics.

Paco Yáñez. First of all, thank you very much for this interview with Mundoclasico.com, we know a conductor on tour doesn’t use to have too much free time; and, of course, congratulations for the very impressive concert you’ve…