BIO:

The multiple award-winning conductor Theodore Kuchar is the most recorded conductor of his generation and appears on over 100 compact discs for the Naxos, Brilliant Classics, Ondine and Marco Polo labels. He has served as Artistic Director & Principal Conductor of two of Europe’s leading orchestras, the Janácek Philharmonic Orchestra and the Nation
al Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine. He is currently Artistic Director & Principal Conductor of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Venezuela, Music Director & Conductor of the Fresno Philharmonic Orchestra and the Reno Chamber Orchestra, and Principal Conductor of the Slovak Sinfonietta...

PRESS:

Smetana: Complete Orchestral Works (Brilliant Classics CD)
Janacek Philharmonic, Theodore Kuchar, conductor
[This article originally appeared in Issue 31:6 (July/Aug 2008) of Fanfare Magazine]

This is a recording of very high worth by a conductor of genius. Theodore Kuchar, former viola-player of the Cleveland Orchestra and a fervently committed chamber music musician, is one of the very few conductors I've ever heard who adopts a conducting style similar to that of Arturo Toscanini, by which I mean not only quick tempos and an inexorable forward momentum but also a view of a symphony orchestra as a large chamber group. This approach divides the orchestra into discrete sections to achieve maximum clarity. (I understand that Kuchar did a poor job with the Prokofiev symphonies for Naxos, but perhaps he had too little rehearsal time and the Ukrainian orchestra couldn't or wouldn't follow him...

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