Roger Boykin
COMPOSER/FOUNDER
Roger Boykin, known primarily as a jazz musician, has had his compositions performed by the Dallas Wind Symphony, The Dallas Symphony Orchestra and numerous jazz groups. He studied orchestration and arranging at Bishop College, UNT, and San Francisco State College. He is also a former Artistic Director of the jazz concert series at The Sammon Center for the Arts.
Creating the HSQ
During the early days of the Covid 19 Pandemic, starting in March 2020, Boykin began writing string quartetes because he couldn’t perform in-person gigs. Boykin turned his talents to composing rather than playing music and composed more than 40 string quartets during that time.
In the winter of 2022, Boykin wanted to organize a quartet to perform some of his compositions in concerts. He called his former student, Maria Demus an accomplished violinist, to see if she would be interested in helping him find some other talented strings players interested in forming a string quartet. She gave it some serious thought, and because she was aware of the lack of opportunities for string players of color to play in symphony orchestras and string ensembles, she decided to help organize a group. As a graduate of Booker T. Washington High School of the Performing and Visual Arts, she recruited some of her friends who had played in that school’s orchestra as well as in Young Strings, a program of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra.