Pagán has taught at Ottawa University in Ottawa, KS where he directed BRAVO!, the Ottawa University Jazz Singers and taught music theory, composition, arranging, and applied jazz and classical piano. He chaired the OUKS Music Department from 2016-19. Dr. Pagán has also served as Director of Marketing and Communications at the American Jazz Museum in Kansas City, and Assistant Director of Jazz Studies at the University of Missouri Kansas City Conservatory. He has also been on the faculties at the University of Colorado at Boulder, the University of Minnesota, Duluth, and Olivet College. Michael Pagán has also led a distinguished career as a jazz ensemble/vocal jazz ensemble conductor and clinician. Under his directorship the BRAVO! Jazz Singers of Ottawa University garnered multiple outstanding performance awards and the UMKC Conservatory Concert Jazz Band was selected for performance at the Missouri Music Educators Association conference. He has directed/worked with honor jazz ensembles in Missouri, Kansas, Colorado, Minnesota, and Illinois. For five years he directed the Colorado Jazz Workshop Monday Night Band. In 2019 and ’20 he was pianist for the Kansas Music Edicators Association Jazz Ensemble, which performed his music and in early 2021 he was featured as a big band composer/eader and solo jazz piano recitalist in two virtutal concerts at Johnson County Community College in Kansas. He continues to play the bass as a secondary instrument.
