Finnish contemporary composer Magnus Lindberg, 50, has been invited to become composer-in-residence with the New York Philharmonic Orchestra.
Lindberg has been commissioned to write a piece for next season's gala opening concert, and later another work for the orchestra during the second year of his residency with the NYPO.
He will also help with programming two concerts by a new contemporary-music ensemble to be drawn from the orchestra.
The decision to call in a composer-in-residence coincided with the ending of the tenure of Lorin Maazel as music director of the New York Philharmonic, as the new man at the helm Alan Gilbert takes up the job from 2009.
Gilbert has also invited on board the prominent American baritone Thomas Hampson as artist-in-residence for a year, and it was further announced on Monday that Russian maestro Valeri Gergiev will conduct more than a dozen concerts in a three-week Stravinsky festival scheduled for the spring of 2010.
The New York Philharmonic, founded in 1842, is the oldest surviving orchestra in the United States, and has its home at Avery Fisher Hall in the Lincoln Center in midtown Manhattan.
