Theodore Kuchar (born May 31, 1963) is an American and Ukrainian conductor of classical music and a violist.
Kuchar was born in 1963 in New York City.[1][2][3] He started to learn to play the violin at ten years of age, later switching to viola.[4] He graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Music, where his viola instructor was Robert Vernon, in 1982.[5][6]
In 1980, he was awarded a Paul Fromm Fellowship from the Boston Symphony Orchestra to study at Tanglewood Music Center.[5][7] He was the principal violist of orchestras in Cleveland, Helsinki, and Cape Town.[1][4][8]
In 1987 he became music director of the Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra in Australia,[7] a post that he held until 1993.[3] Between 1990 and 2006, he served as the first artistic director of the Australian Festival of Chamber Music in Townsville; a Theodore Kuchar Scholarship for Excellence in Music was established there after his departure.[1][9][10][11] He was also music director of the West Australian Ballet in Perth until 1993.[6]
In 1992 Kuchar was appointed Principal Guest Conductor of the Ukrainian State Symphony Orchestra, which changed its name to National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine in 1994.[1] In that year he became artistic director and Principal Conductor of the Orchestra.[5][12] After his contract with the Orchestra ended in 2000, he was awarded the title of Conductor Laureate for Life.[1][5] Under Kuchar's direction, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine became the most frequently recorded orchestra of the former Soviet Union,[5][12] with over 60 compact discs under Naxos Records and its Marco Polo label.[6] Theodore Kuchar's complete discography is numbered over 100 with over 90 records under Naxos Records.[13]
Between 1996 and 2006, he was music director and conductor of the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra.[5][14] He founded the Sinfonia of Colorado, a chamber ensemble, in 1997; it was disbanded in 2002.[15] He was also professor and director of orchestral studies at the College of Music of the University of Colorado at Boulder between 1996 and 2001.[1][4] From 2002 to 2016 he was music director and conductor of the Fresno Philharmonic Orchestra.[16] From 2003 to 2018 he was music director and conductor of the Reno Chamber Orchestra.[17]
His current positions include: