A sought after guest conductor and clinician all across the United States and in Asia, Dr. Pearl Shangkuan is a professor of music at Calvin College where she directs choirs and teaches choral conducting and choral literature. She is also the chorusmaster of the Grand Rapids Symphony as well as the music editor of the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship choral series, published by GIA. She is currently the president of the American Choral Directors Association (ACDA) Central Division. Prior to her appointment at Calvin, she taught at Rutgers University and at the Westminster Conservatory of Music of Rider University in New Jersey.

Her choirs have performed at national, regional and state conventions of the American Choral Directors Association and for other professional music organizations. She has led performances and given workshops all across the United States and in Asia, as well as in Australia and Canada. She has conducted all-state and honor choirs in Michigan, Wyoming, and New York as well as in Tokyo, Japan. Guest engagements for the 2007-08 season took her around the country for the Chorus American A Capella conducting masterclass in Minneapolis; the ACDA North Central Division convention women's honor choir in North Dakota; the René Clausen Choral School in Minnesota; Choristers Guild Children's Choral Festival in Washington, DC; and the Oahu Sacred Music Festival in Hawaii among others.

Dr. Shangkuan has served as a clinician at various conferences, including the St. Olaf National Conference on Worship, Theology and the Arts; the Southern Methodist University Perkins School of Theology Church Music Summer School; the World Association for Chinese Church Music; the Choristers Guild Mid-Winter Workshop; and the Presbyterian Association of Musicians (PAM) in Montreat and Westminster among others. She has also taught choral conducting at the Westminster Choir College Summer Sessions.