In 1988 she became Principal Trombone in the San Diego Symphony, and in 1989 was a prizewinner at the ARD International Music Competition in Munich, West Germany.
Buchman's principal conducting teachers were Otto Werner Mueller, Kenneth Kiesler, Leonid Korchmar, and Oleg Proskurnya Archived 14 August 2016 at the Wayback Machine.
Her appointment received significant press for being one of the first female principal brass positions in a major orchestra.
[5] Rob Bridge, the president of the Society for New Music (SNM) has called Buchman a "vibrant, acclaimed, virtuoso trombonist, and professor.
[7] The advocacy of this coalition, known as the Summit Group, was instrumental in the formation in December 2012 of Symphoria, the successor orchestra to the Syracuse Symphony.