Photo courtesy of Skye Jalal
George Roger
George Rogers is a third-year Conservatory jazz saxophonist majoring in Jazz Performance with an individual major in Music Administration and Community Engagement. An avid musician, composer, and educator, Rogers has performed at venues such as Dizzy’s Club, SFJAZZ, the Concord Jazz Festival, the Vail Jazz Party, and the Cleveland Museum of Art, and has participated in projects and concerts across the country. Recently, Rogers received first prize in the jazz category of the Vandoren Emerging Artist Competition, a prestigious clarinet and saxophone competition aimed at identifying the next generation of talented musicians. As a grand prize winner, he will travel to Paris to visit Vandoren’s headquarters, receive a cash award, and receive a package of Vandoren saxophone products.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Can you describe your path to choosing saxophone and your specialization today?
I started on trombone when I was in elementary school and that never really clicked for me, but for whatever reason I was drawn to the saxophone. I think I liked this YouTube video of a person called Epic Sax Guy in elementary school, and I was very intrigued by that. So, I picked up the saxophone and it felt really natural to me, more so than trombone. The beat — the “music thing” — just started coming easier to me through the saxophone.
I went to the first day of jazz band when I started middle school, and I came home and said, “Mom, this is the worst thing. I don’t want to come back. I don’t like it.” She told me to just stick with it, to go try one more day. I went back, and I fell in love with it the second day. I think it was because I played a solo and learned what it felt like to improvise, and that felt great. Then middle school through high school, growing up in the Bay Area, there were a lot of great opportunities, like youth programs, and great players I became really close with around my age.
When it came time to think about college, Oberlin came to mind initially because of the Double Degree program. I wanted to have involvement in both the College and the Conservatory. Then I got here and I was like, the Conservatory is really great — I want to just focus everything on music, even if it’s not just playing, but through educating and community engagement. That’s when I shifted from a major in the College to this individual major in the Conservatory. It’s still music, but I’m engaging with it in different ways.
What would you say has been most impactful to you in pursuing jazz music, composition, and community engagement and education?
I had a lot of teachers growing up who worked with me on saxophone or jazz music in very different ways with different levels of rigidity or looseness. They were all great. Then, I got to Oberlin and there were a lot of influences from my peers and professors. I got involved with the Oberlin Creative Music Lab in my freshman year with Associate Professor of Contemporary Music and Improvisation and Director of Conservatory Professional Development Dana Jessen. I took that because I had a preexisting interest in free music and improvisation outside of the jazz idiom. Dana has been a great mentor to me in that sense, as well as a lot of my peers in the Jazz department. I’ve been very fortunate to have some great mentors since the time I was very young.
Could you talk about your experience with the Vandoren Emerging Artist Competition?
I found out about this because an upperclassman last year had placed. The way I do these things: I hear about it, take note of it, come back to it about a year later, and then if it’s something I want to check out, I do. It was a relatively simple application where I sent a selection of repertoire of jazz standards as well as an original composition to showcase that other side of my practice. It wasn’t an in-person audition — it was an entirely online, blind audition. I was very shocked to have received first place, but obviously honored. I do get to go to Paris to visit the Vandoren factory and there may be some performance opportunities as well, but those things will be ironed out soon.
Are there any compositions, pieces, or projects that you’re working on that you would like to share?
This summer, I’m attending a workshop called New Music On The Point; it has grown over the years from just being in contemporary and classical to the broader new, creative music areas. They have this dual track program, so I’m going both as a composer and performer. I’m writing a piece for soprano voice, cello, alto saxophone, and piano. It’s very different for me because I’m used to writing a lot within the jazz context and instrumentation, but I’m excited to see how it goes when I get there.
Me and another jazz student, third-year drummer Max Simas, went to high school together, and we have a lot of mutual friends and musicians that we work with. For Winter Term 2024, we put together a group with a bassist and a drummer that are based in LA, and we did a couple of sold-out shows between the Bay Area and SoCal of all original music. It was a mini tour, and this summer we’re hoping to do a longer form tour with the same group.
For my Winter Term this year, I wrote a collection of vignettes for solo saxophone, and that was a really great experience because it was my first time getting to work closely with someone in the composition department. I worked with Visiting Assistant Professor of Composition Soomin Kim, OC ’19, and that was a very different kind of education. I got so much out of working with someone with such a different experience. I got funding from the school through a Flint Initiative Grant that allowed me to print a number of booklets of it in hard copy, and I did a premiere of it with members of the Jazz Saxophone Studio in February.
Though you still have some time, what do you hope to pursue after Oberlin?
I hope next year to cast my net very wide. I’m definitely interested in pursuing jazz studies, and that will happen regardless of whether I go to a school for a master’s in jazz performance. I’m also interested in pushing myself as a composer and seeing if that could evolve into anything. Between the Winter Term project composing for the saxophone and some other recent things, I feel like I’ve been growing a lot in that regard.