Contact Information
Biography
John Vallier is curator for the UW Ethnomusicology Archives. With over 100,000 items and more than 1,500 collections, it's among the largest university-based ethnographic archives in the Americas. As curator he stewards a range of archival functions—from preservation to access—for local and worldwide researchers alike. From 2023-2025 Vallier is also UW PI for Native Northwest Online, a multi-partner digital repatriation project led by Professor Kim Christen, Washington State University. Native Northwest Online is UW Libraries' largest repatriation project to date.
Vallier holds a full-time tenured appointment in Libraries Special Collections, as well as adjunct and affiliate faculty positions in Ethnomusicology, CHID, Honors and Museology. As faculty he offers courses on a range of topics, including music of Seattle, time-based media preservation, remix, and archival repatriation.
Prior to coming to UW, Vallier was UCLA’s ethnomusicology archivist (2002-2006) where he oversaw community outreach grants and the first GRAMMY Foundation funded Indigenous sound recording repatriation project. Prior to that he was a soundtrack composer for Activision Blizzard and a drummer for various bands. More information available here.
