Fabio Luisi has been hired as music director of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra starting with the 2020-21 season. The 59-year-old Italian will conduct a concert next spring and become music director designate for the 2019-20 season, the orchestra said Monday. He agreed to a contract through the 2023-24 season.

Luisi will become just the fourth music director for the Dallas Symphony in more than four decades after Eduardo Mata (1977-93), Andrew Litton (1994-2006) and Jaap van Zweden (2008-18), who starts as music director of the New York Philharmonic next season. After conducting the Dallas Symphony for the first time in 2002, Luisi did not return until this March.