Author of Violin is Easy, a pedagogical book for teachers and students, Bucknell began in the performing arts as a classical musician.
He appeared as a guest on Jim Henson's The Ghost of Faffner Hall as a member of the Como String Quartet in 1988.
"[1] He was a founding member of the Raw Fish Quartet performing at the George Crumb Festival in New York, concerts in Taiwan and La Jolla and at the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival, playing George Crumb's Black Angels[2] and Steve Reich's Different Trains.
In 1991 he won the Auckland International Viola Congress Competition and the Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Award.
[3] He studied music in Melbourne at the Victorian College of the Arts with Nathan Gutman; in Los Angeles, California with violist[4] Donald McInness; in Siena, Italy at the Accademia Musicale Chigiana with Yuri Bashmet; and in Cologne, Germany with Rainer Moog, a student of Walter Trampler at the Juilliard School, the principal violist of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under Herbert von Karajan.