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Music Director and Conductor of the Fresno Philharmonic since 2002, Theodore Kuchar, one of the most prolifically recorded conductors of the past decade, appears on over 100 compact discs for the Naxos, Brilliant Classics, Ondine and Marco Polo labels. For the past sixteen years, he has served as Artistic Director and Principal Conductor of two of Europe's pre-eminent Orchestras, the Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra (formerly the Czech Radio Orchestra) and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine. He also serves as the Music Director of the Reno Chamber Orchestra in Nevada. Since 2004, he has served as Resident Conductor at the Kent/Blossom Music Festival, the educational institution established by the late George Szell, in cooperation with The Cleveland Orchestra.

Highlights of Maestro Kuchar’s conducting activities over the past season have included appearances with the Israel Symphony, the Cape Town Philharmonic, and the Munich Philharmonic. Last winter he led his Janacek Philharmonic on a four-week, nineteen-city concert tour of the United States that included a stop in Fresno. This past summer, in addition to performances in the Czech Republic, South Africa, Israel, and his annual residency at the Kent/Blossom Festival, Maestro Kuchar also conducted the National Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela in Caracas.

In recent seasons, Maestro Kuchar’s guest conducting engagements have taken him to major musical centers including Amsterdam, Berlin, Chicago, Helsinki, Hong Kong, London, Madrid, Prague, Seoul, and Sydney. In 2008, he was called upon with a single day’s notice to conduct the BBC Symphony Orchestra of Wales in Josef Suk's epic Asrael Symphony. Soloists with whom Kuchar has collaborated include James Galway, Jessye Norman, Lynn Harrell, Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Joshua Bell, Sarah Chang, Mstislav Rostropovich, and Frederica von Stade, among others.

As Principal Conductor of the Janacek Philharmonic Orchestra since 2005, Kuchar and the orchestra have recorded 10 compact discs, devoted to the complete symphonies of Carl Nielsen, the complete overtures and tone poems of Dvorak and the complete orchestral works of Bedrich Smetana, all for the Brilliant Classics label. Also completed for Brilliant Classics, was a world premiere recording of Rachmaninoff’s Fifth Piano Concerto, a reconstruction of that composer’s Second Symphony based on the composer’s manuscripts. In addition to the 2009 USA Tour, Kuchar has conducted the orchestra in concert tours of Australia, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands and Switzerland.

During Maestro Kuchar’s tenure, the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine became the most frequently recorded orchestra of the former Soviet Union. During the period 1994-2004, the orchestra recorded over 70 compact discs for the Naxos and Marco Polo labels, including the complete symphonies of Kalinnikov, Lyatoshynsky, Martinu and Prokofiev, as well as major works of Dvorak, Glazunov, Mozart, Shchedrin, Shostakovich and Tchaikovsky and the symphonies and orchestral works of Ukraine’s leading contemporary symphonist, Yevhen Stankovych. The first of these recordings, devoted to Lyatoshynsky’s Symphonies Nos. 2 and 3, was awarded the ABC’s “Best International Recording of the Year” in 1994. Their recording of the complete works for violin and orchestra by Walter Piston for the Naxos label was hailed by Gramophone (January 2000) as a “Record of the Year” for 1999. Their complete symphonies of Prokofiev under Kuchar are regarded by many critics as the most accomplished recorded cycle available.

During the 1996-97 season, Kuchar and the National Symphony Orchestra of Ukraine undertook a project devoted to the performance of the cycle of complete symphonies of Anton Bruckner, in their original versions. This historic project, commemorating the centenary of Bruckner’s death, was sponsored by the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. During the 1997-98 season, they undertook a cycle of the complete symphonies of Franz Schubert, commemorating the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth.

An enthusiastic frequent flyer and international traveler, Maestro Kuchar, during his tenure in the Ukraine, led the orchestra on eleven international tours, including Asia, Australia, Central Europe and the United Kingdom. During the 2003-04 season, he conducted the opening subscription weeks and a three-week European Tour with the Berliner Symphoniker (Berlin Symphony). In recent seasons, Maestro Kuchar has conducted nearly forty concerts with this distinguished orchestra. In February 2005, he conducted a three-week United States Tour with the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie.

Theodore Kuchar, who is also a violist, continues to devote several periods annually to one of his most serious passions, the performance of chamber music. Kuchar was the Artistic Director of The Australian Festival of Chamber Music from 1990 until 2006. Since 2005, he serves as the Artistic Director of the Nevada Chamber Music Festival. His chamber music colleagues have included James Buswell, Martin Chalifour, Sarah Chang, Lamar Crowson, Leila Josefowicz, Oleg Kagan, Dong-Suk Kang, Isabelle van Keulen, Oleh Krysa, Mark Lubotsky, Truls Mork, Paul Neubauer, Irina Schnittke, Torleif Thedeen and Thomas Zehetmair. In 1994, he participated with colleagues Oleh Krysa and Alexander Ivashkin in the world premiere of Penderecki’s String Trio in New York City. In July of 1999, he appeared as violist in two recordings for the Naxos label, in works by Alfred Schnittke (with Irina Schnittke and Mark Lubotsky) and Walter Piston. Kuchar’s recording of works by Walter Piston was awarded the Chamber Music America/WQXR “Record of the Year” for 2001.

Kuchar remains as strong an advocate of composers of the present day as he does of the great composers of the past. He has conducted works, in the presence of the composers such as George Crumb, Sofia Gubaidulina, Giya Kancheli, Benjamin Lees, Alfred Schnittke, Rodion Shchedrin and Yevhen Stankovych, among others. In May 2000, Mr. Kuchar conducted the world premiere, at the invitation of Yo-Yo Ma, of the Capriccio for Cello and Orchestra, with Mr. Ma as soloist, by American composer Lukas Foss. During recent seasons in Fresno, Maestro Kuchar has conducted works by John Adams and Christopher Rouse, as well as music by Fresno composers Jack Fortner and George Warren.

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Martin Chalifour began his tenure as Principal Concertmaster of the Los Angeles Philharmonic in 1995. The recipient of various grants and awards in his native Canada, he graduated with honors from the Montreal Conservatory at the age of 18 and then moved to Philadelphia to pursue studies at the Curtis Institute of Music.

In 1986 Chalifour received a Certificate of Honor at the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow; he was a laureate of the Montreal International Competition the following year. Since then he has concertized extensively, playing hundreds of concerto performances from a repertoire of more than 50 works. He has appeared as soloist with conductors such as Pierre Boulez, Charles Dutoit, Christoph Eschenbach, Sir Neville Marriner, and Esa-Pekka Salonen. Outside the U.S., he has appeared as a guest soloist with the Auckland Philharmonia, the Montreal Symphony, the Hong Kong Philharmonic, the National Orchestra of Taiwan, and the Malaysian Philharmonic, among others.

Chalifour began his orchestral career in 1984 with the late Robert Shaw and the Atlanta Symphony, playing as Associate Concertmaster for six years. Subsequently he occupied the same position for five years in the Cleveland Orchestra, where he also served as Acting Concertmaster under Christoph von Dohnányi. While in Cleveland, Chalifour taught at the Cleveland Institute of Music and was a founding member of two chamber ensembles, Myriad and the Cleveland Orchestra Piano Trio.

Chalifour is a frequent guest at several summer music festivals. Maintaining close ties with his native Quebec, he has returned there to teach and appear as soloist with the Quebec Symphony. Chalifour and two of his Philharmonic colleagues, Joanne Pearce Martin and Peter Stumpf, met in 1981 while all three were studying at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia; they recently joined forces to form the Los Angeles Philharmonic Piano Trio.

Martin Chalifour is a professor at the University of Southern California’s Thornton School of Music.

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