Bob Santelli

Founding Executive Director, GRAMMY Museum at The Recording Academy

Bob Santelli serves as Founding Executive Director of the GRAMMY Museum®. In his role, Santelli advises the President of the Museum on key content and programmatic issues. He curates the Museum's main exhibitions, hosts selective educational and public programs and oversees the Museum's Institutional and University Affiliate programs. Santelli is also responsible for consulting with the GRAMMY Museum's sister institutions —the GRAMMY Museum Mississippi and the GRAMMY Museum Experience in Newark, New Jersey.

During his tenure, Santelli helped the Museum expanded its brand with the opening of new museums in three domestic markets; curated over 65 exhibits, many of which traveled internationally; produced over 600 public programs; and formed educational partnerships with the White House and The Kennedy Center. Following the merger of the GRAMMY Museum and the GRAMMY Foundation in 2017, Santelli was named Founding Executive Director and currently oversees the Museum's outside projects and traveling exhibits.

Prior to joining the GRAMMY Museum, Santelli was one of the original curators of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum and was the museum's first Director of Education and Vice President of Public Programs. In 2000, he was appointed CEO of the Experience Music Project (now MoPOP) in Seattle, the first-ever interactive music museum. Santelli also developed the UK's first pop music museum, the British Music Experience.

Santelli a frequent lecturer on American music and a noted blues and rock historian, contributing to Rolling Stone and The New York Times, among other periodicals, as well as the author of more than a dozen books on American music, including Greetings From E Street and The Bob Dylan Scrapbook, both New York Times bestsellers. In 2012, Santelli co-produced Woody At 100: The Woody Guthrie Centennial Collection, which earned him a GRAMMY® nomination for Best Historical Album. In 2020, Santelli won a GRAMMY for Best Historical Album for his work on Pete Seeger: The Smithsonian Folkways Collection.

Santelli holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Monmouth University and a Masters of Arts degree from the University of Southern California.

Timeline

  • Founding Executive Director, GRAMMY Museum

    Current role

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