After studying in Cologne and at the IRCAM in Paris, he was chief conductor at the Musiktheater im Revier in Gelsenkirchen for several years, then led the ensemble musikFabrik and composed operas on commissions in Germany and Austria.

He focused on electronic music at the IRCAM in Paris[1] with Vinko Globokar in 1982–83, on a scholarship of the Studienstiftung des Deutschen Volkes.

[2] His first opera, Bericht über den Tod des Musikers Jack Tiergarten, premiered at the Munich Biennale in 1996.

In 2007, Kalitzke received a commission from Theater an der Wien to compose Die Besessenen after Witold Gombrowicz, which premiered on 19 February 2010.

[4] Online Musik Magazin wrote that Kalitzke's score "could be a musical representation of the world of Hieronymus Bosch.