MA Top 30 Professional: Theodore Kuchar

Principal Conductor
National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine
Lviv National Philharmonic Orchestra

Hours after Russia launched one of its largest missile and drone strikes on Kyiv since the start of its full-scale invasion, Theodore Kuchar was on a podium in the city conducting the National Philharmonic of Ukraine.

That the program of Smetana, Dvorák, and Sibelius was being delivered against the backdrop of war, in an October 10, 2025 concert, is characteristic of the Ukrainian-American conductor’s fearless approach to championing music.

Kuchar has for over three decades been principal conductor of the National Philharmonic Orchestra of Ukraine; since 2022, he has held the same post with the Lviv National Philharmonic. He took the latter orchestra on a 40-concert-U.S. tour in 2023. “We had wonderful successes, culminating with a sold-out Carnegie Hall,” he says.

A 2014 recording of works by Ukrainian composer Borys Lyatoshynsky, his first with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine, “opened the eyes of the world to the treasure-chest of riches in Ukraine which had been suppressed by the Soviets,” he says.

Born in New York City to Ukrainian immigrant musicians, he studied viola at the Cleveland Institute of Music before working as an orchestral violinist in Helsinki and Cape Town. He went on to serve as artistic director of the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, chief conductor of the Janácek Philharmonic Orchestra in Ostrava, in the Czech Republic, and artistic director of the Venezuela Symphony Orchestra in Caracas.

“Each orchestra and the audiences they serve must be addressed as an astute business person would approach their specific market,” he says. “The program that sells out a major concert-hall in Ukraine…may struggle to sell a dozen tickets in the U.S.”

With roughly 150 recordings to his name, he is often described as the most recorded conductor of his generation. He has won BBC Record of the Year, Gramophone Editor’s Choice, Australian Broadcasting Corporation Record of the Year, and a Latin Grammy nomination.

He also teaches conducting at Houghton University, describing it as “one of the greatest forms of self-education. I love teaching above all else and don’t do nearly as much as I believe that I should,” he says.