Conductor against accepting old van on motorway (9)

'conductor' is the definition.
(Italian conductor, 1905-1980)

'against accepting old van on motorway' is the wordplay.
'against' becomes 'anti' (prefix meaning against).
'accepting' means one lot of letters goes inside another (inserted letters are accepted).
'old' becomes 'o' (common abbreviation eg in OE for Old English).
'on' says to put letters next to each other.
'motorway' becomes 'M' (as in motorway names - Ma, Mi etc).
'o'+'van'='ovan'
'anti' enclosing 'ovan' is 'antovani'.
'antovani' put after 'm' is 'MANTOVANI'.