Theodore Kuchar
conductor

Biography

Theodore Kuchar, one of the most prolifically recorded conductors of the past decade, has recorded over 100 compact discs for the Naxos, Brilliant Classics, Ondine and Marco Polo labels. For the past fifteen years, he has served as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of two of Europe's preeminent Orchestras, the Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra (formerly the Czech Radio Orchestra) and the National Symphony Orchestra of the Ukraine. He presently also serves as Music Director and Conductor of the Fresno Philharmonic Orchestra and the Reno Chamber Orchestra in the United States. An avid chamber musician, he served as the Artistic Director of The Australian Festival of Chamber Music (1990-2006) and has served as the Artistic Director of the Nevada Chamber Music Festival since 2005. Since 2004, he has served as Resident Conductor at the Kent/Blossom Music Festival, the educational institution established by the late George Szell, in cooperation with The Cleveland Orchestra.

Highlights of the 2008-09 season include a four-week, 20 concert tour of the USA with the Czech Symphony Orchestra. Guest conducting engagements include, the BBC Symphony, BBC National Symphony Orchestra of Wales, the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra, the Israel Symphony Orchestra, the Prague Symphony Orchestra and the National Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela. During the past several seasons, guest conducting engagements have taken him to major musical centers incl uding Amsterdam, Berlin, Chicago, Helsinki, Hong Kong, London, Madrid, Prague, Seoul and Sydney. His collaborations with major artists have included James Galway, Jessye Norman, Lynn Harrell, Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Sarah Chang, Mstislav Rostropovich and Frederica von Stade, among others.

With the Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra since 2005, Kuchar has recorded 12 compact discs devoted to the complete symphonies of Carl Nielsen, and the complete overtures and tone poems of Dvorak. This past summer, Maestro Kuchar, in collaboration with the Janacek Philharmonic, completed a three cd recording of the complete orchestral works of Czech composer Bedrich Smetana for the Brilliant Classics label. Also completed for Brilliant Classics, was a world premiere recording of Rachmaninoff’s Fifth Piano Concerto, a reconstruction of that composer’s Second Symphony based on the composer’s manuscripts and the Piano Concertos of Ravel and Bartok. With the Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra, Kuchar has conducted tours of Australia, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and Switzerland, and in January and the USA.
During his tenure with the National Symphony Orchestra of the Ukraine, Kuchar conducted complete symphony cycles by Bruckner and Schubert, and led eleven international tours to Asia, Australia, Central Europe and the United Kingdom. Under Mr. Kuchar’s direction, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine became the most frequently recorded orchestra of the former Soviet Union. Between 1994 and 2004 the orchestra recorded over 80 compact discs for the Naxos and Marco Polo labels, including the complete symphonies of Kalinnikov, Lyatoshynsky, Martinu and Prokofiev, as well as major works of Dvorak, Glazunov, Mozart, Shchedrin, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky. They also recorded the symphonies and orchestral works of Ukraine’s leading contemporary symphonist, Yevhen Stankovych. The recording of Lyatoshynsky’s Symphonies Nos. 2 and 3 was awarded ABC’s “Best International Recording of the Year” in 1994. Their recording of the complete works for violin and orchestra by Walter Piston for the Naxos label was hailed by Gramophone (January, 2000) as a “Record of the Year” for 1999. The complete symphonies of Prokofiev are regarded by many critics as the most accomplished cycle available compact discs.

Kuchar remains as strong an advocate of composers of the present day as he does of the great composers of the past. In addition to his recordings of contemporary works with the NSO of Ukraine, he has also conducted premieres and performances of works by George Crumb, Lukas Foss, Giya Kancheli, Benjamin Lees, Alfred Schnittke and Rodion Shchedrin, among others. In May, 2000, at the invitation of Yo-Yo Ma, Mr. Kuchar conducted the world premiere of Lukas Foss’s Capriccio for Cello and Orchestra, with Mr. Ma as soloist.

As a violist, Kuchar continues to devote several periods annually to one of his most serious passions, the performance of chamber music.

Since 1990, he has served as Artistic Director of The Australian Festival of Chamber Music, an annual event regarded as the most important chamber music festivals in the Southern Hemisphere. His colleagues have included James Buswell, Martin Chalifour, Sarah Chang, Leila Josefowicz, Truls Mork, Paul Neubauer, Irina Schnittke, and Thomas Zehetmair. In 1994, he participated with colleagues Oleh Krysa and Alexander Ivashkin in the world premiere of Penderecki’s String Trio in New York City. He has appeared as violist in recordings for the Naxos label of works by Alfred Schnittke (with Irina Schnittke and Mark Lubotsky), Bohuslav Martinu and Walter Piston. The latter recording was awarded the Chamber Music America/WQXR “Record of the Year” for 2001. Critical acclaim has included the following:

"Theodore Kuchar, as anyone will know from his Naxos recordings, is an extremely exciting and talented conductor, and his take-no-prisoners approach works very well in this colorful music. He blasts through the Carnival and Hussite Overtures with uninhibited abandon. His
performance of the Symphonic Variations is thrilling, as cogently flowing as any, and it concludes with the best, most powerfully roof-raising final fugue that I ever hope to hear.

The other works, especially the big tone poems, also benefit from Kuchar's enthusiasm and drive. Othello (here for some reason using Verdi's spelling: "Otello") has passion and atmosphere aplenty. The Water Goblin (the cymbal part not quite sorted out--Kubelik and Neumann get it right), the Noonday Witch, and the Wood Dove are all extremely graphic and richly evocative. Kuchar holds The Golden Spinning Wheel together as well as anyone, while A Hero's Song makes an aptly triumphant, indeed hair-raising conclusion to the whole set. The
playing of the Janácek Philharmonic Orchestra is very committed and gutsy... For me, though, and I suspect for many listeners, the sheer gusto of the playing carries the day and trumps all minor qualms. Besides, at the Brilliant Classics price you really can't lose--but I would love to hear what Kuchar could do at the helm of a truly world-class ensemble. -www.classicstoday.com

"Kuchar’s account is as infectiously spirited an account as you could wish for ... To sum it up, this is a quite remarkable CD on all counts - outstandingly fine orchestral playing, vividly exciting and very Russian music-making, and a very tangible sound picture, consistently in the demonstration bracket." -- Gramophone

"Theodore Kuchar leads what is without question the most exciting complete Nielsen symphony cycle available, making this the set to get for Nielsen newcomers. He doesn't put a foot wrong in any of these symphonies, and it's rather amazing to hear how well he handles passages where so many conductors come to grief. For example, the finale of the Second Symphony has tremendous physicality at an aptly swift tempo. So often it's taken way too slowly. Kuchar gets all the tempo relationships right in the tricky finale of the Fourth as well, and he drives the Fifth home with such exultant power that for once that second movement doesn't sound like an anticlimax, coming as it does after perhaps the most inspired 20 minutes of music that Nielsen
ever penned. Kuchar also isn't at all fazed by the weirdness of the Sixth, its concluding Theme and Variations in particular. Here's a case where simply playing what's written as characterfully as possible really does produce the desired wacky effect far better than any sort of poking and prodding. You simply won't hear a finer performance anywhere. Kuchar is equally sensitive to Nielsen's ear for color--those special moments of startling sonic innovation. I'm thinking of the
trumpet tremolos before the grand waltz in the Espansiva's opening movement, or the timpani roll with brushes in the slow movement of the Second... Kuchar's conducting really does sweep the board. Given a choice of who I would likely listen to in this music on any given day, Kuchar is the man, and I suspect that you'll agree. He's that good."
-www.classicstoday.com

"This is the best Roy Harris symphony recording since Bernstein’s first Third. Why? Because it gives us Harris’s “sound in a way I rarely hear it - deep, broad sonorities played at tempos slow and steady enough to create sweep, breadth and intensity without being logy ... I always suspected there was a great symphony in the Seventh, but Kuchar is the first to bring it out. Eugene Ormandy’s 1955 Columbia recording is competent but the sound is too bright and raw. None of the broadcasts I’ve heard does it Kuchar’s kind of justice. The Ninth is not a great work, but it’s a good one, and Kuchar’s is the best performance I’ve heard." - American Record Guide

During the 1996-97 season, Kuchar and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine undertook a project devoted to the performance of the cycle of complete symphonies of Anton Bruckner, in their original versions. This historic project, commemorating the centenary of Bruckner’s death,
was sponsored by the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. During the 1997-98 season, they undertook a cycle of the complete symphonies of Franz Schubert, commemorating the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth.