Initially a violin and viola player, Theodore Kuchar was awarded a Paul Fromm Fellowship from the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1980 for advanced study and performance at Tanglewood. As a pupil of Robert Vernon, the principal violist of the Cleveland Orchestra, he graduated from the Cleveland Institute of Music in 1982; joined the Finnish National Opera Orchestra as principal violist; and held the same position with the Finnish National Radio Symphony Orchestra until 1988. During this period Kuchar was a frequent participant in several of Europe’s major chamber music festivals, including those held at Lockenhaus and Kuhmo.
Shortly after appearing in Australia for the first time in 1987, he was appointed chief conductor of the Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra in Brisbane, and from 1990 to 2006 held the position of artistic director of the Australian Chamber Music Festival, the pre-eminent festival of its type in the southern hemisphere; in addition he conducted the West Australian Ballet in Perth until 1993. During Kuchar’s period as chief conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine based in Kiev, which lasted from 1992 to 2000, the orchestra developed an international reputation through both its tours and numerous recordings. His programmes combined popular repertoire with the works of major contemporary composers, including Crumb, Foss, Gubaidulina, Kancheli, Schnittke and Shchedrin, and during the 1996–1997 season the orchestra presented a complete cycle of the symphonies of Bruckner to mark the centenary of the composer’s death. In 2000, the orchestra appointed Kuchar its conductor laureate for life. As well as conducting in Eastern Europe, Kuchar has built up a solid career in the west of the USA: he was appointed chief conductor of the Boulder Philharmonic Orchestra in 1996, of the Fresno Philharmonic Orchestra in 2001, and of the Reno Chamber Orchestra in 2003. In June 2002, he conducted the premiere of Rodion Shchedrin’s Cello Concerto in London. From the start of the 2005–2006 season he took up the post of chief conductor of the Janaček Philharmonic Orchestra, formerly the Czech Radio Orchestra.
A strongly physical conductor, Kuchar has a commanding presence on the podium. His knowledge and experience as a string player is clearly of great value in his work with orchestras. He is extremely level-headed as to the value of recordings, as the following comments made in interview clearly demonstrate: ‘If you go into an attorney’s office, you can often see walls and walls of journals and publications, which these professionals rely upon on a regular basis. The same can be said about people in the medical profession, not to mention many others. Do I rely on recordings when preparing a new work? Absolutely not! Do I listen to existing recordings when preparing a work for the first time? Absolutely! It would be pure ignorance not to. We are very blessed, in the age of the compact disc and an ultra-competitive recording industry, to have access to just about every recording ever committed to “tape”.’
Kuchar is in addition acutely aware of the importance of the many performing traditions preserved through recordings: ‘I never listen to recordings to imitate or copy, but to be educated and informed about traditions of the past and approaches of the present. For any conductor, or musician, how can you approach Mozart, Haydn or Beethoven and ignore the lifetime of experience of Szell, Sibelius and Berglund, Shostakovich and the personal relationships of Mravinsky, Oistrakh or Rostropovich, and so on?’
As both an instrumentalist and a conductor, Kuchar has made full use of these experiences: ‘I was very fortunate, in my relative “youth” to have studied and later performed in Cleveland, where there could not have been a stronger tradition and feeling of ownership of the central- European literature – the ghost of George Szell was present at every turn, even when it was only Lorin Maazel who was to be seen! During my nearly five years in Helsinki, nowhere was there a more direct contact and tradition between musicians and composer than those musicians had with Sibelius. In Kiev, there are still plenty of musicians today who speak about their collaborations with Shostakovich, Oistrakh, Mravinsky and Kondrashin as though it were yesterday. I feel, and am, very fortunate to have had a priceless education and professional experience.’ Kuchar’s recordings with the National Symphony Orchestra of the Ukraine have included complete cycles of the symphonies of Kalinnikov, Lyatoshynsky and Prokofiev, as well as highly regarded performances of symphonies by George Antheil, Paul Creston and Roy Harris. In addition he has recorded with the orchestra popular works by Mussorgsky, Prokofiev, Shchedrin, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky. As a violist he has participated in a recording of Schnittke’s String Trio, with violinist Mark Lubotsky and cellist Alexander Ivashkin.
© Naxos Rights International Ltd. — David Patmore (A–Z of Conductors, Naxos 8.558087–90).