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Michael Pagán, DMA
Adjunct Professor - Jazz Piano
Education
DMA, Northwestern University
BM Piano Performance, Kent State University
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As a jazz pianist, Michael Pagán has performed for more than thirty years throughout the United States and in Europe with many jazz greats including Greg Abate, Billy Hart, Claudio Sloan, Kenny Wheeler, Jiggs Whigham, and many more. While a graduate student at Kent State, he won first prize in the New Music For Young Ensembles composer’s competition, which included a Carnegie Hall premiere. Doctoral work in composition at Northwestern followed, and soon Pagán was playing the jazz clubs of Chicago and was mentioned in Downbeat as a musician “deserving wider recognition.” He has also performed on the historic steamer Delta Queen on the Mississippi.He performs regularly at numerous venues in Kansas City as a solo jazz pianist and appears with his own trio, with vocalist Millie Edwards, and with Greg Carroll’s Midnight Blue Jazz Quartet.
As a composer/arranger, Pagán has written more than 150 works, mostly in the jazz idiom, and released eight CDs as leader. His big band recording Pag’s Groove garnered international critical acclaim. In 2010, Pagán released two recordings, Michael Pagán Trio Three for the Ages on Capri Records and 12 Preludes and Fugues for saxophone quartet, a work of over 70 minutes on Tapestry Records. A live duo recording with Millie Edwards entitled "Millie and Mike Live" was released in 2011 on the Artists Recording Collective label. He is currently preparing his ninth CD, a solo recording of holiday music called Keyboard Christmas. Pagán's music is published by Dutch Music Partners of The Netherlands and UNC Jazz Press and he has recorded for the Cadence, Capri, Dutch Music Partners, and Artists Recording Collective labels.
In addition to a heavy schedule of performing, composing and recording, Pagán has taught at the college level for more than 20 years, including faculty positions at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, the University of Colorado at Boulder and the UMKC Conservatory. In addition to his adjunct professor role at Ottawa University, he also performs in the Faculty Jazz Sextet and accompanies the Jazz Choir. Dr. Pagán also serves as Vice President of the Board of Directors of Kansas City Youth Jazz.