William Buchman

BS Brown University

Applied Bassoon

William Buchman joined the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1992, after two seasons with the Dallas Symphony.  In 1996, he was appointed to the position of assistant principal bassoon.  He served as acting principal between November 1996 and August 1997 and for the CSO's 2003-04 season.

Bill has performed and toured with the Chicago Chamber Musicians, Chicago Pro Musica and the Chicago Symphony Winds, has played chamber music with pianists Daniel Barenboim and Christoph Eschenbach, and appears regularly with Music of the Baroque.  He made his debut as a soloist with the Chicago Symphony in February 2002, and was a soloist at the 1998 Mostly Mozart Festival at Lincoln Center. Bill has appeared at the Eastern Shore Chamber Music Festival in Maryland, the Grand Teton Music Festival in Wyoming and the St. Barts 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.

Bill is from Canton, Ohio, and earned a Bachelor of Science in physics magna cum laude with Honors from Brown University in 1987.  With the support of a DAAD Fellowship, he continued his physics studies the following year at the Universitt Fridericiana Karlsruhe in Germany.  Upon returning to the United States, Bill studied bassoon performance at the Yale University School of Music with Arthur Weisberg and at the University of Southern California School of Music with Norman Herzberg, before winning a position in Dallas, where he was also on the faculty of the Meadows School at Southern Methodist University.

A member of the DePaul University School of Music faculty since 1997, Bill also coaches the bassoon section of the Civic Orchestra of Chicago and has presented master classes in Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Indiana, Brazil and China. He lives with his partner Lee Lichamer in Chicago's Ravenswood neighborhood and is an avid bridge player and bread baker.

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