How would you describe Berlin? What kind of city is it, what kind of people are there, what makes it special? Of course I love my good old hometown. The people are fast and pretty self-confi- dent. The way we talk... Berlin has a lot of top things, but for sure I can recommend all the orchestras there. Each one is fantas- tic. I mostly head to the city to conduct now – a nice feeling as a former student there, which I was 25 years ago. It was in that city that you learned to play music, having come from a musi- cal family. Yet, you knew that you want to be a conductor. Why a conductor? My parents were taking me to symphon- ic concerts from a very early age (six or sev- en). I saw these guys in front of the orchestras and wanted to do that. It was like an instinct. Today you are the Chief Conductor of the Dortmund Philharmonic Orchestra, but you worked in Stuttgart for a long time. Can you briefly present this city; what makes it unique and what do you like about it? Stuttgart is really a typical German city. High quality of life, lots of cars, it is known as “car-town”, because Mercedes and Porsche are located there, but also has a lot of cul- ture, with three major orchestras. I have a
this. They all play with me with a holy flame of love for music in their hearts, I can feel this. Do you have favourite composers; what do you prefer to play or conduct? I conduct a repertoire from Johann Sebas- tian Bach to modern composers of today like Thomas Adès , Wolfgang Rihm, Lera Auerbach or Christian Jost. Of course I have preferenc- es: Beethoven, Bruckner, Mahler, Wagner, Ra- chmaninov, but also Béla Bartók or Erich Wolf- gang Korngold. As a pianist, I had some fairly good technical skills as a student and graduated University with Liszt’s Piano Sonata in B minor. But nowadays I can only play much easier stuff. How do you feel about the previous open- air concerts, which proved really spectac- ular? They did a lot to popularise classi- cal music... That’s right, and especially in Belgrade the open-air concert is a phenomenon. About 30,000 people listened to our orchestra! I don´t know of a similar situation worldwide. How did you decide this year to play Dis- ney’s Fantasia? What can we expect of this concert? A very famous classical film – a master- piece of the genre. Accompanied by a dozen orchestral pieces that are also very known. It should be a perfect combination for a sum- mer Sunday in Belgrade.
lifelong connected to that city, having had more than 375 performances at the fabu- lous Stuttgart Philharmonic. Can you im- agine how strong this feeling is? And all this brings us to Belgrade. Have you managed to find something spe- cial here for yourself? What do you like apart from our Philharmonic? I moved to Belgrade ten years ago and this is now my second hometown. I don’t see myself as a guest, no longer as a foreigner. My wish is this: to be part of this wonder- ful place, to serve – together with the excel- lent Belgrade Philharmonic – the people of Belgrade; to invite them to join music of ge- niuses performed with energy and hearts filled with passion. Okay, now you can tell us why you love our Philharmonic. You talk about pas- sion and energy, are those the most important elements for good music? Making music is a profession. It is not a job. You give a lot as a musician – above all an amazing volume of hours, days, months and years of your life to practise, study and perform music. You must be ready to give that sacrifice in front of all the masters we have – Mozart, Beethoven, Mahler, Rachmani- nov and many more, these are only exam- ples. And everyone in the orchestra is doing
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