There is black, there is white – and little in between. “Very simple, very strict, a little bit severe. That’s the way I am,” says Donatella Flick, founder of the Donatella Flick Conducting Competition, the 2012 edition of which takes place at London’s Barbican Centre later this month.

We are seated on a black-and-white sofa beneath a black-and-white painting. The carpet, piano and coffee table in Flick’s drawing room are black, as are most of the ornaments. The rest is white, including our teacups and a neat row of cushions, the latter monogrammed with D or S.

Could it be that D stands for Donatella and S for her 23-year-old son Sebastian? Flick, 59, ripostes that the D “could be anything – it could be ‘darling’, it could be ‘day’. It’s not important. S is much more important than D.”