News
Round the world tour! Within a period of just a few weeks, Joseph Swensen will be conducting all over the world: he will perform in countries including Scotland, Adelaide, Portugal, France and Japan.
Success with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra Joseph Swensen has recently conducted the world première of Sally Beamish’s percussion concerto Dance Variations, with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Colin Currie. The concert also featured Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony and was a huge success. Tim Ashley wrote in The Guardian, ‘his Beethoven … combines fire with spaciousness in ways that are well-nigh ideal. The Seventh was superbly controlled yet thrilling and ecstatic, above all in the tensions of the allegretto and the drama of the finale.’ For more reviews, please click here.
Violin Soloist As of next season, Joseph Swensen is delighted to announce that he will return to the violin, once again performing concerti with orchestra. He will combine this with his conducting career. Before launching his conducting career, Swensen enjoyed a highly successful career as a violin soloist throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, and was an exclusive recording artist with BMG Classics.
Duo Swensen has recently formed a violin-piano duo with his longtime collaborator, Amercian pianist and conductor, Jeffrey Kahane.
A new CD has just been released on the Signum label. The CD features the first recording of Joseph Swensen’s orchestration of Brahms’ Trio Op8 (original version from 1853), entitled ‘Sinfonia in B’. Joseph Swensen conducts the Malmö Opera Orchestra in this recording, which also features him playing the violin in some other arrrangements of music by Clara and Robert Schumann, and Brahms. Please visit www.signumrecords.com to find out more.
Joseph Swensen is the Founder and Director of a new international arts institution headquartered in Townshend, Vermont (USA) called Unity Hills Arts Centers International. U-HAC International is a totally new kind of arts organisation devoted to providing the arts to underserved and economically depressed rural communities worldwide. At its home base, a 15 room, circa 1776 farmhouse built upon 5 acres of lush rolling hills and rushing streams, U-HAC is a meeting, learning, collaborating and living space for artists of all kinds. The U-HAC home base also serves as a center for artistic activities to the communities of southern Vermont and northern Massachusetts. www.u-hac.com
