Mark Swed has the big scoop: Esa-Pekka Salonen will step down as music director of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 2009, after a seventeen-year tenure that has transformed the American orchestra business, to be replaced by the young Venezuelan conducting sensation Gustavo Dudamel. I'll have more to say in a future New Yorker. Justin ponders here; Tim Mangan's thoughts are here; Kosman thus. — Alex
