Professor Bakan currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Society for Ethnomusicology, the Central Fellowships Committee of the American Council of Learned Societies, the International Advisory Board of Ethnomusicology Forum (journal of the British Forum for Ethnomusicology), and as series editor for the Routledge Focus on World Music book series. He has been the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including two Florida State University Undergraduate Teaching Awards, a three-year grant from the National Endowment for the Arts for his work on music and autism, and selection to the Choice Outstanding Academic Titles List for Music of Death and New Creation.

As a percussionist, Bakan has performed with luminary musical artists including George Clinton, Tito Puente, John Cage, Pauline Oliveros, and Rudolf Serkin, as well as with musical organizations ranging from the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and Los Angeles Philharmonic Green Umbrella Players to the legendary funk band Parliament and several championship-winning gamelan groups in Bali, Indonesia. He appears with George Clinton on the 2018 Parliament album Medicaid Fraud Dog, and also on the Omnimusica album Ashrei, which featured six of his original compositions and was a first ballot entry in the 2015 GRAMMY Award category for best world music album.

Professor Bakan maintains an active schedule as a lecturer, clinician, and visiting professor, having taught or spoken at dozens of institutions including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Indiana universities, the universities of Chicago and Toronto, and the Berklee College of Music, State University of Rio de Janeiro, and University of Music and the Arts in Graz, Austria.