Theodore Kuchar is an American conductor who compiled an extensive recording catalog before the age of forty.

Kuchar studied as a violinist, then took viola. He graduated from the Cleveland (Ohio) Institute of Music and began his career as principal violist of orchestras in Cleveland and in Helsinki, Finland. He appeared widely as a viola soloist in Australia, Europe, the United Kingdom, and the USSR.

At the age of twenty, he received a Paul Fromm Fellowship from the Boston Symphony Orchestra to enable him to study at Tanglewood, where he worked with Leonard Bernstein, André Previn, Colin Davis, and Seiji Ozawa. He was an assistant to Lorin Maazel with the Cleveland Orchestra, and guest conducted in Brisbane, Cape Town, Perth, Prague, Tallinn, and Helsinki. His was appointed Music Director of both the Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra in Brisbane and the West Australian Ballet in Perth.

In 1990, he became Music Director of the Australian Festival of Chamber Music and accepted the position of Principal Guest Conductor of the Ukrainian State Symphony Orchestra in 1992. When the orchestra changed its name to National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine in 1994, it also named him Principal Conductor and Artistic Director.

Economic dislocations and supply problems following the end of the Soviet Union and Ukraine's establishment as an independent state had severely affected the musicians of the orchestra; some woodwind players had not been able to find a source for good quality reeds. Kuchar made it a point to shop for such supplies while on the way to Ukraine from his other positions.

He made fifty compact discs for the two HNH labels, Marco Polo and Naxos, with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine. These have included sets of Russian and Ukrainian composers such as Kalinnikov, Lyatoshinsky, Stankovych, Prokofiev, Shostakovich, Shchedrin, Tchaikovsky,Glazunov, and Ippolitov-Ivanov. The first of the Lyatoshinsky discs was the ABC's (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) award for "Best International Recording of the Year." He has also participated in the budget Naxos label's highly-praised "American Classics Series.” It is claimed that Kuchar's recordings with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine are the new country's leading export product.

He continues to play viola professionally, mostly in a busy chamber music schedule, but also recorded works for viola solo and orchestra. The National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine named him Conductor Laureate for Life when he left in 1999 at the end of his contract. Source: AllMusic Page

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