Leipzig, Germany - Italian conductor Riccardo Chailly won a five-year extension of his main contract in the German city of Leipzig on Wednesday, with city councillors voting overwhelmingly to keep him until 2015.

There was only one vote against and two abstentions as councillors voted to extend beyond 2010 Chailly's engagement as chief of the Gewandhaus Orchestra, often described as the orchestra with the largest number of salaried instrumentalists in the world.

He had earlier given up his baton at the city's opera orchestra, where his stay was marked by feuds.

Chailly, who had previously conducted the Concertgebouw Orchestra in Amsterdam, had been attracted to Leipzig by the unprecedented offer of a dual conducting post at the Leipzig Opera and Gewandhaus from September 2005, but it proved an unhappy combination.

At the Gewandhaus Orchestra, Chailly has been judged a success with many recordings and tours of Europe and North America. (dpa)