William Buchman joined the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1992 after two seasons with the Dallas Symphony. He was appointed assistant principal bassoon in 1996 and has served as acting principal on multiple occasions, including all overseas tours between 2007 and 2014. In 2008 he performed and toured as guest principal bassoon with the Los Angeles Philharmonic.
Buchman has played chamber music with pianists Daniel Barenboim, Christoph Eschenbach, Yefim Bronfman and Emanuel Ax; performed and toured with the Chicago Chamber Musicians, Chicago Pro Musica and the Chicago Symphony Winds, and plays regularly with Music of the Baroque. He was a soloist at the 1998 Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center and first appeared as soloist with the CSO in 2002; he also has performed as a soloist on multiple occasions with Music of the Baroque and DePaul University ensembles. His many festival appearances include those at the Eastern Shore Chamber Music Festival in Maryland, the Grand Teton Music Festival in Wyoming and the Saint Bart’s Music Festival in the Caribbean. He was awarded first prize in the 1990 Gillet Competition of the International Double Reed Society and has performed at several IDRS conferences since then.
A native of Canton, Ohio, Buchman earned a bachelor of science degree in physics magna cum laude from Brown University in 1987. With the support of a DAAD fellowship, he continued his physics studies the following year at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology in Germany. On returning to the United States, Buchman studied bassoon performance at the Yale University School of Music with Arthur Weisberg and at the University of Southern California Thornton School of Music with Norman Herzberg.
A member of the DePaul University School of Music faculty since 1998, Buchman also coaches the bassoon section of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and has presented master classes throughout the United States and in Brazil, China, Canada and Germany. He resides with his husband Lee Lichamer in Chicago’s Ravenswood neighborhood.
