Meredith Holmgren is a curator who specializes in vernacular arts, music, social history, and cultural policy. She currently serves as Museum Curator at the Smithsonian American Art Museum where she works with folk and self-taught arts under Senior Curator Leslie Umberger. From 2019 to 2023, she served as the Smithsonian’s first Curator of American Women's Music. Her exhibition, "Music HerStory: Women and Music of Social Change," attracted more than one million visitors to the Smithsonian Libraries Gallery at the National Museum of American History from June 2022 to March 2025.  In previous capacities, she served the U.S. national museum as Program Manager for Education and Cultural Sustainability at Smithsonian Folkways and Principal Investigator of Intangible Cultural Heritage at the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage. From 2014–2015, Holmgren led the nomination process to inscribe the Smithsonian's Moses and Frances Asch Collection on UNESCO’s Memory of the World International Register, becoming the first music collection from the United States to be recognized by the United Nations. Over the years, she has authored numerous digital publications and co-curated recording collections, including "The Social Power of Music" with Grammy Award-winning producer Jeff Place, and Smithsonian Folkways' Asian Pacific America music series. Her extensive editorial experience includes serving as Managing Editor for eleven issues of Smithsonian Folkways Magazine, Editorial Committee Member of the 2019 book "Smithsonian American Women," and Proofreader of "Singing in the Echo Chamber". She has held several leadership positions within the Smithsonian, including serving on the curatorial committee of the American Women's History Initiative, the executive committee of Smithsonian Music, and as the chair of the Institutional Review Board. She currently serves as Co-Chair of the Society for Ethnomusicology's Section for Applied Ethnomusicology. Her previous professional service positions include leadership with the Association of Critical Heritage Studies and the East-West Center's Asia Pacific Leadership Alumni Association. In her early career, Holmgren resided in three foreign countries and five U.S. states, where she completed her education and worked with international organizations such as the International Institute for Asian Studies, the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Freemuse, and the International Council for Traditional Music and Dance. She holds an M.Phil. in Asian Studies (Leiden University), an M.A. in Cultural Anthropology (Leiden University), a PGCert. in Asia-Pacific Leadership (East-West Center/University of Hawai’i at Mānoa), and a B.A. in Ethnomusicology (UCLA).

Positions

• Museum Curator, Smithsonian American Art Museum 2025 -
• Research Associate, Smithsonian Institution 2023 - 2025
• Curator of American Women's Music, Center for Folkliife and Cultural Heritage 2019 - 2023
• Program Manager, Smithsonian Folkways Recordings 2012 - 2019
• Principal Investigator, Intangible Cultural Heritage, Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage 2013 - 2016

Geographic Focus

• Asia  Continent
• Asia, Europe, and Middle East  Continent
• Europe  Continent
• Indonesia  Country
• Southeast Asia  Geographic Region
• United States of America  Country