Irka Mateo Folk Quartet

Irka Mateo sings Afro-Dominican folk music and writes music for accordion and guitar-led songs inspired by the indigenous/ Afro/ European folk traditions of her native country and Latin America. Irka traveled for 10 years in the rural areas of the Dominican Republic documenting more than 13 genres of folk music traditions. Her extensive field research was recognized by the Grammy Foundation and awarded a “Preservation Implementation” grant, allowing her work to be donated to the Dominican National Archives as well as to the Ethnomusicology Archives at Wesleyan University in the United States.