[citation needed] Upon his return to the United States in 1955, he founded the Brandeis Chamber Ensemble, whose members included Robert Koff (Juilliard String Quartet), Nancy Cirillo (Wellesley), Eugene Lehner (Kolisch Quartet), and Madeline Foley (Marlboro Festival).
[citation needed] This ensemble performed widely with a repertory divided equally between contemporary music and the tradition.
At the same time Boykan appeared regularly as a pianist with soloists such as Joseph Silverstein and Jan DeGaetani.
He was Senior Fulbright Lecturer at Bar-Ilan University, Israel (1994) and composer-in-residence at Warebrook Contemporary Music Festival, Irasburg, Vermont (1998).
His hundreds of students include Steven Mackey, Peter Lieberson, Ross Bauer, Paul Beaudoin, Craig Walsh, and Marjorie Merryman.
Another CD of chamber works issued by CRI (now assigned to New World Records) includes a violin sonata, Flume for clarinet and piano, a song cycle (A Packet for Susan), and the First String Quartet.
Sonata for Solo Violin (commissioned by Dan Stepner) is included on a CD by the violinist Curt Macomber (also CRI/New World).
In 2004 Scarecrow Press, Maryland, published Boykan's collection of essays Silence and Slow-Time: Studies in Musical Narrative.
Pendragon Press published his second book, The Power of the Moment: Essays on the Western Musical Canon, in 2011.