The Chicago Symphony Orchestra today named Riccardo Muti, the brilliant 66-year-old Italian conductor, as its 10th music director, effective September 2010.

His initial five-year contract calls for a minimum 10 weeks of subscription concerts each season. Muti, who recently ended a productive, if often stormy, tenure as music director of La Scala in Milan, succeeds Daniel Barenboim.

As one of the world's greatest orchestras, the Chicago Symphony has a distinguished history of music directors, including Georg Solti and Fritz Reiner. Muti guest-conducted the CSO last fall in Chicago and on a European tour, generating enormous praise and a steady buzz that he should be given the podium full-time.

The breaking news item posted by my colleague John von Rhein on the Chicago Tribune Web site includes a link to the CSO's press release on the appointment.

The Muti coup in Chicago (the New York Philharmonic had wooed him too, before choosing Alan Gilbert) puts renewed pressure on other major ensembles still left with music director vacancies -- the Philadelphia Orchestra (where Muti was once music director) and the National Symphony. Stay tuned.

Photo: AP