Each year since its founding in 1919, the Los Angeles Philharmonic has been hailed as Southern California's leading performing arts institution. Under the dynamic leadership of Esa-Pekka Salonen who became the orchestra's tenth music director in 1992, the Philharmonic was widely recognized as one of the world's outstanding orchestras. Both at home and abroad it has, as the Berliner Zeitung stated, "...proved that it belongs among the best in the United States." Esa-Pekka Salonen's highly successul tenure with the orchestra ended in 2009.