The first rehearsal with an orchestra I haven't worked with before is like a blind date. Except for the fact that, with an orchestra, one is usually committed to be together for at least a week! Which can sometimes feel like an eternity.

During recent seasons, Swensen has forged many new relationships with orchestras around the world, yet he continues to nourish many long-standing ones as well. In addition to ongoing relationships with orchestras such as the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, BBC National Orchestra of Wales, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Malmö (Sweden) and Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra (Minnesota), he has in recent seasons founded particularly strong new relationships with the Orchestra National du Capitole de Toulouse and the Hallé... in Europe, and the Saint Louis Symphony Orchestra in the USA.

The young American conductor Joseph Swensen, making his first appearances in Saint Louis with this weekend's performances, is one to watch. Energetic, balletic in his movements, and equipped with the sweep and style to handle the three very different works [in the programme] with idiomatic musicality - as well as a sense of humour - he scored a solid hit.
(St Louis Post Dispatch)

And, given his recent decision to leave the Principal Guest Conductor position at the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, his diary is now freer to forge similar new relationships.

I love the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, I really do. I will continue to see them as often as possible. Leaving the Principal Guest Conductor position there was one of the most difficult decisions I've ever made. I just needed to free up my schedule... ultimately for the sake of the music! Just weeks after making the decision, the orchestra and I had the most wonderful week of work together imaginable with Mahler 6. So that was, in a way, proof that the decision was the right one.

Swensen is the complete musician: a virtuoso violinist and composer as well as conductor, ostensibly well suited to Mahler [Symphony No 6]. From the very first sinister opening march, his approach was one of taut, thrusting vigour, and while the music is shot through with melodic material that represents glimpses of a soaring but seemingly unattainable joy, this mitigated little against the overall impression of a relentless underlying force.
(The Guardian, London)