PORTLAND (AP) – Robert Moody, a South Carolina-born cellist, has been named conductor and music director of the Portland Symphony Orchestra and will begin his new duties during the 2008-2009 concert season.

Moody, 40, has been serving as music director of the Winston-Salem Symphony in North Carolina. He will continue to hold that job, maintaining a home in both communities.

“My job as conductor is to try and create the very best environment so the musicians can make music at the highest possible level – even higher than they knew possible – so that the sum is greater than the parts,” Moody said.

“My job as music director is to be an ambassador for a great orchestra and for great orchestral music in the community,” he said.

The PSO, with more than 80 members and a budget of around $3 million, plays 13 concerts annually. In addition, it performs Christmas concerts and an annual holiday concert around the Fourth of July.

Moody, who signed a three-year contract, replaces Toshiyuki Shimada, who left after 20 seasons to take a job at Yale University in Connecticut at the close of the 2005-2006 season.

The PSO board voted Tuesday night to extend the contract offer, wrapping up a search that lasted nearly three years.

Moody, who studied conducting at the Eastman School of Music and has conducted for 15 years, emerged as a top candidate after his first of two guest appearances with the orchestra in 2006, said search committee Chairman Gordon Gayer.

Moody said he believed his rapport with the orchestra was a key to his selection.

“I think the chemistry part is a really key term. No one wins or loses these jobs. I didn’t win the position, nor did I beat anybody out. It was just the right fit at the right time,” he said.