First-place winner of the 2025 Vandoren Emerging Artist Award in Jazz, George Rogers is a saxophonist, composer, teacher, and facilitator from the San Francisco Bay Area, currently based in Northeast Ohio.

Drawing inspiration from a diverse array of genres, Rogers's playing and composing styles blend elements of traditional, modern, and avant-garde jazz, while also embracing influences from popular, experimental, and singer-songwriter music.

Rogers—a mentee of saxophone legends Gary Bartz, Justin Robinson, and Dann Zinn—has performed at venues across the nation, including New York City (Dizzy’s Club, Nublu, Brothers Wash & Dry, Prospect Jams), the Bay Area (SFJAZZ, California Jazz Conservatory, Bird & Beckett, The Backroom, Tom’s Place), Southern California (LIBRETTO, The Stowaway, The Green Room), Northeast Ohio (Oberlin Conservatory, The Feve, Hanson’s Records, All Things Great, the Cleveland Museum of Art), and in numerous other states, from Vermont to Alaska, as part of diverse programming including the West Oakland Sound Series, Vail Jazz Party, and Concord Jazz Festival. He has performed in settings involving artists such as Wynton Marsalis, Gerald Cannon, Dan Wall, Luis Perdomo, Eva Scow, Zack Brock, Bob Lanzetti, Lorin Benedict, and Soweto Kinch.

Rogers is also a passionate educator and arts administrator dedicated to nurturing inspired musicians and facilitating community engagement. As a part of Jennifer Fraser’s Bang on a Gong program, he has worked with El Centro, a non-profit organization in Lorain, OH, to facilitate communal music-making using the Javanese Gamelan. Most recently, Rogers served as the Development and Community Outreach Coordinator for the Sitka Fine Arts Camp.

Though occasionally traveling to San Francisco and New York City, Rogers currently resides in Oberlin, OH, where he offers in-person and remote lessons in saxophone, improvisation, and composition.

Rogers recently received a Flint Initiative Grant from Oberlin Conservatory to compose and record EIGHT VIGNETTES: for unaccompanied saxophone, which premiered in February 2025.