Rodney Rogers is Professor Emeritus in the School of Music. He taught composition lessons, courses in, Form/Analysis, Orchestration and graduate seminars in Baroque Music, Advanced Form, and the music of Bach, Bartok/Lutoslawski, and Stravinsky. Compositions by Rodney Rogers include both instrumental and vocal music, ranging in size from works for solo performers to full orchestra. 

He is the recipient of composition awards from BMI and ASCAP and fellowships from Tanglewood, the MacDowell Colony, and the Yaddo Artist Colony. Works have been commissioned by the National Endowment for the Arts, the College Band Directors National Association's 50th Anniversary, the Music Teachers National Association (MTNA), the Oakwood Chamber Players (Madison), Palo Verde Brass and numerous individual performers and chamber groups. 

Five pieces received their premiere in Carnegie Recital Hall in New York City. Groups performing his music include the American Composers Orchestra, Eastman Wind Ensemble, New York New Music Ensemble, American Brass Quintet, Juilliard Brass Quintet, St. Louis Symphony Chamber Players, Gregg Smith Singers, Richmond Sinfonia, Tucson Symphony, Omega Quartet, and university ensembles throughout the United States. His compositions have also been performed in Europe, China, Japan, South America and Australia.

His music appears on solo albums by various concert artists in the United States, Belgium and England. Most works are available through the composer at rodneyrogers.online. Some larger works are published by Hal Leonard, G. Shirmer, and Carl Fischer. His CD Complicated Optimism (Albany Records—available on iTunes) contains music for both large and small ensembles. Rogers received his PhD. from the University of Iowa and has taught composition at Louisiana State University, Lawrence University (Appleton, WI) and at Arizona State University from 1987 to 2019.