LOS ANGELES (AP) – The Los Angeles Philharmonic’s music director, Esa-Pekka Salonen, will step down at the end of the 2008-2009 season to concentrate on composing, the Los Angeles Times reported Sunday.

His successor will be Gustavo Dudamel, a 26-year-old Venezuelan conductor with limited experience conducting a professional orchestra, according to the report, which was posted on its Web site.

Mr. Salonen, 48, said he will continue to conduct the Philharmonic and other orchestras.

“I always felt that one day I would have to make the change in my own life, bite the bullet and see what it is to be a composer who conducts rather than the other way around,” he said.

Finnish-born Mr. Salonen’s scheduled resignation from the Philharmonic after 17 years would make him the nearly 90-year-old cultural institution’s longest-serving director.

He is credited with programing a creative lineup of performances and guiding the Philharmonic into its new home at the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2003.

Mr. Dudamel, who was signed to a five-year contract beginning in the 2009-10 season, is a relative newcomer. He had never stood before a professional orchestra before winning a competition sponsored by the Bamberg Symphony in Germany three years ago.

Mr. Dudamel’s U.S. debut was conducting the Los Angeles Philharmonic at the Hollywood Bowl in 2005 and jr won over the crowd with his good looks and ebullience. The experience stuck with him, he said.

“Los Angeles was the first orchestra to give me the opportunity to make my U.S. debut at the very beginning of my career,” Mr. Dudamel said. “The energy was very special from the start, and I love how open to new ideas the orchestra is.”

He has conducted since then some of the world’s most important orchestras, including the Boston Symphony, and, on Thursday, the Chicago Symphony. He also has conducted at Italy’s La Scala opera house.