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The contract, with a 5-year term, was announced Wednesday by the city's cultural administrator, Andreas Mailath-Pokomy, at a press conference in Vienna's city hall.

He will succeed Fabio Luisi, who was recently appointed as principal conductor of New York's Metropolitan Opera. He will also, in the 2012-13 season, assume the post of music director of the Zurich Opera. Luisi and the Vienna Symphony will tour in November including New York and in cities in the mid-West.

"With Philippe Jordan, we have won one of the most celebrated and interesting conductors of his generation. In spite of his youth, he can already look back on a closely followed career" says Rudolf Streicher, president of the Vienna Symphony. He is the son of famed conductor Armin Jordan, who died in 2006.

The tradition-rich Vienna Symphony has had 15 music directors and Jordan will follow in the footsteps of famed conductors like Wolfgang Sawallisch, Carlo Maria Giulini, Josef Krips and Georges Prê_tre. Jordan is already hinting at future tours with the orchestra and spoke of the synergy with his musical directorship of the Paris Opera, where he is starting his third season.