Theodore Kuchar
Conductor Theodore Kuchar has been active in many countries beyond his native U.S., notably in Ukraine. He is exceptionally prolific as a recording artist, mostly with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine.
Kuchar was born in 1963 in New York to parents of Ukrainian background. He took up the violin at age ten, switched to viola, and was admitted to the Cleveland Institute of Music in Ohio, where he studied with Robert Vernon. Kuchar graduated in 1982 and soon landed principal viola posts in Cleveland and Helsinki, Finland. He appeared as a soloist in the U.S. (including at the Tanglewood Festival in Massachusetts and the Blossom Music Festival in suburban Cleveland), Europe, Australia, and the former Soviet Union. Concurrently, Kuchar was building a career as a conductor, earning a Boston Symphony Orchestra Paul Fromm Fellowship when he was 20. That allowed him to study with such conducting luminaries as André Previn, Seiji Ozawa, and Leonard Bernstein. Kuchar landed a post as assistant to Lorin Maazel at the Cleveland Orchestra and guest conducted orchestras as far afield as South Africa, Australia, Finland, and the former Czechoslovakia. Kuchar was appointed music director of the Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra in Brisbane and the West Australian Ballet in Perth in 1987. He also guest conducted the Ukrainian State Symphony Orchestra in 1992, and when the orchestra was renamed the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine in 1994, Kuchar became principal conductor and artistic director. Soon after that, he and the orchestra released a recording of Boris Lyatoshinsky's Symphonies Nos. 4 and 5 on the Naxos label.
That was the first of more than 140 recordings Kuchar has made, the majority of them on Naxos and many with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine. During shortages of musical supplies following the collapse of the Soviet Union, he sometimes brought them from the U.S. When Kuchar left that orchestra in 1999, he was named conductor laureate for life and has continued his association with the group. He served as conductor and music director of the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra in Colorado from 1996 to 2006, founded a short-lived Sinfonia of Colorado, and taught at the University of Colorado music school in Boulder. Kuchar served as music director and conductor of the Fresno Philharmonic Orchestra in California from 2002 to 2016 and held the same positions with the Reno Chamber Orchestra from 2003 to 2018. Kuchar was resident conductor at Ohio's Kent/Blossom Music Festival, beginning in 2004, and artistic director of the Nevada Chamber Music Festival, beginning in 2005. He was chief conductor of the Janáček Philharmonic Orchestra in Ostrava, Czech Republic, from 2005 to 2012. He also served as artistic director of the Venezuela Symphony Orchestra in the 2010s. In 2022, Kuchar returned to Ukraine, becoming principal conductor of the Lviv National Philharmonic Orchestra, and that year, he took up a new post as professor of orchestral conducting at Houghton University in upstate New York. In 2023, he conducted the Lublin Philharmonic in Poland on the Navona album Rhapsodic: Gershwin, Rachmaninoff with pianist Fanya Lin.
© James Manheim /TiVo
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Hartmann: Orchestral Music
Lviv National Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, Bülent Evcil, Theodore Kuchar
Klassiek - Released by Toccata Classics on 4 feb. 2022
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Boris Lyatoshynsky : Symphonies Nos. 2 & 3
Ukrainian State Symphony Orchestra, Theodore Kuchar
Klassiek - Released by Naxos on 4 nov. 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2
Ukraine National Symphony Orchestra, Theodore Kuchar
Klassiek - Released by Naxos on 17 mei 1995
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Boris Lyatoshynsky : Symphony No. 1 - Grazhyna
Ukrainian State Symphony Orchestra, Theodore Kuchar
Klassiek - Released by Naxos on 1 jan. 1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Boris Lyatoshynsky : Symphonies Nos. 4 & 5
Ukrainian State Symphony Orchestra, Theodore Kuchar
Klassiek - Released by Naxos on 4 nov. 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Moldau
Theodore Kuchar, Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra
Klassiek - Released by Brilliant Classics on 27 jul. 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Yevhen Stankovych : Symphonies Nos. 1, 2 & 4
National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, Theodore Kuchar
Klassiek - Released by Naxos on 4 nov. 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Mendelssohn: Concerto for Violin, Piano and Orchestra, Concerto for Violin and String Orchestra in D Minor
Solomiya Ivakhiv, Antonio Pompa-Baldi, Slovak National Symphony Orchestra, Theodore Kuchar
Klassiek - Released by Brilliant Classics on 27 sep. 2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
LEES: Symphony No. 4, 'Memorial Candles'
James Buswell, Kimball Wheeler, Ukraine National Symphony Orchestra, Theodore Kuchar
Klassiek - Released by Naxos on 27 okt. 1998
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
LYATOSHYNSKY: Symphonies Nos. 2 and 3
Ukrainian State Symphony Orchestra, Theodore Kuchar
Klassiek - Released by Marco-Polo on 11 mei 1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Symphonies n°4 & 5
Ukrainian State Symphony Orchestra, Theodore Kuchar
Klassiek - Released by Marco-Polo on 23 jun. 1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Second Waltz
Theodore Kuchar, National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine
Klassiek - Released by Brilliant Classics on 25 apr. 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Symphonie n° 1 - 'Grazhyna', Op. 58
Ukrainian State Symphony Orchestra, Theodore Kuchar
Klassiek - Released by Marco-Polo on 21 okt. 1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Rhapsodic
Fanya Lin, Theodore Kuchar, Polish Wieniawski Philharmonic Orchestra
Klassiek - Released by Navona on 10 nov. 2023
24-Bit 96.0 kHz - Stereo -
Prokofiev: Cinderella Suites / Scythian Suite
Ukrainian State Symphony Orchestra, Theodore Kuchar
Klassiek - Released by Naxos on 21 sep. 1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Erkin: Symphony No. 2, Violin Concerto, Köçekçe
Istanbul State Symphony Orchestra, James Buswell, Theodore Kuchar
Klassiek - Released by Naxos on 10 jun. 2016
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Tchaikovsky: 1812 Overture / Romeo and Juliet / Capriccio Italien
Ukraine National Symphony Orchestra, Theodore Kuchar
Klassiek - Released by Naxos on 2 jun. 2003
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Symphonies Nos. 7 and 9
Ukraine National Symphony Orchestra, Theodore Kuchar
Klassiek - Released by Naxos on 1 jul. 2002
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Latin American Classics
Orquestra Sinfonica di Venezuela & Theodore Kuchar
Klassiek - Released by Brilliant Classics on 1 sep. 2012
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
SHCHEDRIN: Carmen Suite / Concerto for Orchestra
Ukrainian State Symphony Orchestra, Theodore Kuchar
Klassiek - Released by Naxos on 1 okt. 1994
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Violin Concertos Nos. 1 and 2 / Fantasia for Violin
James Buswell, National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, Theodore Kuchar
Klassiek - Released by Naxos on 27 okt. 1998
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo