Welcome to my long overdue website. I hope you enjoy exploring it. I look forward to hearing from you.

Rachel Buchman has lived in the arts since she was a young child. Born in New York City, raised on Long Island, in Queens, Brooklyn and the Upper Westside, her life has been an unbroken string of singing, playing guitar and piano, recording, acting, directing, dancing, and teaching. Her recordings have won numerous awards and accolades. She has lived and worked throughout the United States, in England, Germany, and Israel.

Presently, Rachel devotes herself to teaching music to children in underserved communities and children with learning differences. She also rides and trains horses and their people. Her nearly half century practice of Iyengar and her Zen practice have informed every aspect of her life and teaching.

Rachel’s seven albums for children and families have won numerous awards and honors. She has also been recorded as a narrator for compositions by Karim Al-Zand and other living composers. LINK

Presently, Rachel is teaching music to children in Title One public schools in Houston, TX, and mentoring the next generation of teaching artists through The Hope Project. LINK. Since 2015, Rachel has been teaching music at The School for Young Children, a school for children ages 6-13 with language related learning differences. LINK. Rachel is a certified teacher of Dalcroze Eurhythmics, a method of teaching music through joyful physical experiences, singing, improvisation, rhythm games, aural skills and emotional connection. LINK

In the coming year, Rachel will be a visiting clinician at the Yale School of Music in support of their Music in the Schools Initiative, which partners with the New Haven public schools. LINK.

From 2000-2023, Rachel was a lecturer in music at the Shepherd School of Music at Rice University, teaching Dalcroze eurhythmics, coaching undergraduate and graduate classical musicians and composers in alternative performance styles and outreach performance. She also coached students in the art of performing works that require concert musicians to speak, move and act while playing their instruments. (Read more about her work at the Shepherd School. LINK).  For 17 years she collaborated with Larry Rachleff, Artistic Director of the Shepherd School Symphony Orchestra, until his untimely death in 2022. Together they created annual Family Concerts in the tradition of Leonard Bernstein. Their concerts were interactive illuminations of concert music that invited audiences to interact through imaginative adventures, physical participation, and aural detail. You can listen to family concert live recordings. LINK. During the Covid pandemic, with 15 Shepherd School Students, Rachel created fanciful instrument demos for every instrument of the orchestra. LINK.

Rachel teaches private piano lessons, integrating movement, improvisation, composition, and child-centered pedagogy. She offers online group music classes for families with young children. LINK

Rachel has loved horses since childhood. Though she rode as a child, her riding experiences were never satisfying. At age 49, she decided it was time to put boots on again and find the equine experience she had dreamed of.  She attended clinics in natural horsemanship, working equitation, and classical riding. She began training with Karen Brown in 2010. In 2013, she adopted her first horse, Hatya (“wind” in the language of the Nimiipuu /Nez Perce tribe). Hatya is a mare from the Nez Perce tribe’s breeding program the goal of which is to revive the foundation Appaloosa that the tribe had been famous for before its destruction by the policies of U.S. government. Rachel and Hatya continue to have adventures together. Rachel now trains horses for others. Read more about Rachel’s equestrian training methods. LINK

Rachel is a devoted student of Iyengar yoga, practicing since 1980. In 2014 she spent five weeks in India studying at RIMYI (Ramamani Iyengar Memorial Yoga Institute) in Pune. She is deeply grateful that she learned from Guruji Iyengar himself who left this world in August of 2014 and from Gitaji who left this world in December 2018. LINK TO HIYS

Since 2018, Rachel has been practicing meditation. She is a student of Zen at the Houston Zen Center (LINK). She is also a student of Jewish Buddhist teachers Sylvia Boorstein, Norman Fischer, Rabbi Jeff Roth, and others. (LINK)