GFDD Dominican Get-Together on Dominican Root Music and Culture with Irka Mateo Rouses Audience Members to their Feet

GFDD Dominican Get-Together on Dominican Root Music and Culture with Irka Mateo Rouses Audience Members to their Feet
New York, July 6, 2012

Yesterday, July 5, Global Foundation for Democracy and Development (GFDD) partnered with the Permanent Mission of the Dominican Republic to the United Nations to celebrate the Dominican Republic’s rich and distinct musical heritage. The Foundation was greatly honored to showcase the sensational talent of award winning singer, songwriter and researcher of Dominican folk music, Irka Mateo.

Mateo captivated the audience with her powerful vocals, energetic dance moves and Taino inspired dress. The event came to a close with a standing ovation.

The singer and ethnomusicologist brought audience members on a journey to discover the splendor of Dominican music, from the origins of the country’s root music to the propulsive rhythms of today’s contemporary genres. Mateo’s unique interpretation of Dominican musical traditions reflects the historical and cultural transformative processes that have led to the country’s vibrant Taino, African and Spanish musical heritage.

The internationally acclaimed artist and expert on Dominican folkloric music and culture opened the evening with a discussion on the historical beginnings of the country’s numerous musical genres. Mateo described the diverse cultural influences that have fused together to shape the culture and music of the Dominican Republic. She spoke of the religiousity of both Taino and African derived root music, the closeness of both the cultural groups to nature and ancestor worship. She explained that Dominican culture, and the root music reflective of it, is emblematic of a type of folkloric and religious synchronism that merges Taino and African religious practices, beliefs and deities with the Catholicism, leading to the emergence of a version of Catholicism that allowed Taino and African descendants to continue to worship their deities under the semblance of European imposed Catholicism. Mateo provided insights into the cultural importance of key African derived musical varieties, including congos, salves, palos and sarandunga, as well as the uniquely Dominican conmarca, mangulina, carbine and merengue – outcomes of the country’s melding Taino, African and Spanish cultures. She also referred to more recent musical influences brought to the island by immigrants from Saint Kitts and Nevis to San Pedro de Macoris and by the freed slaves from Louisiana that arrived to Samaná.

The artist’s musical performance to follow ignited the Dag Hammarskjold Auditorium of the United Nations Headquarters in New York, rousing many audience members to leave their seats and dance in the aisles – and inspired one audience member to even join Mateo and her ensemble of percussionists, guitarists and an accordionist on the stage.

Mateo captivated the audience with her powerful vocals, energetic dance moves and Taino inspired dress. The event came to a close with a standing ovation.

GFDD would like to thank all who contributed to the makings of this successful event, and would like to also acknowledge the participation of special guests Haitian-American musician, producer and politician, Wycef Jean, and Ambassador Andrew J. C. Kao, Director General of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in New York.

About Irka Mateo:

For years now, Irka Mateo´s extraordinary career has been one of breaking boundaries and embracing and awakening people’s deepest humanity, in particular, through music.

Irka says her artistic sensibility came alive during the years she lived in Spain and France in the late 1970s and early 1980s where she became involved in the emerging world music scene that would ultimately influence her work, her worldview and her passion for the preservation of folk music. Her music continued to incubate in Brazil, Canada, the US and her native Dominican Republic, to which she returned in 1998.

It was during this period in the Dominican Republic, after her successful Spanish language recording of Sucre Amer, a song in defense of Haitian sugar cane workers, that she began to perform widely in the Caribbean and, more importantly, immersed herself in the folk music of the Caribbean islands, which is essentially founded on popular religious ceremonies and Taino Culture. The result of this cultural and musical fusion is music infused with African and Taino traditions.

For years now, Irka Mateo´s extraordinary career has been one of breaking boundaries and embracing and awakening people’s deepest humanity, in particular, through music.

Irka’s research led to the founding of the Guabancex, Wind and Water Society dedicated to the popularization and preservation of native culture. As part of her continued research on Taino Culture, Irka has been collaborating, since 2008, with the Smithsonian Institution and the National Museum of the American Indian in New York City where she gives concerts and workshops on Taino instruments, music and dances. She has taken her “Taino Mythology through Music” workshops to various universities and cultural institutions in the Dominican Republic and the United States.

As a folk music and cultural researcher, Irka’s work has been invaluable. She rigorously collected audio recordings in remote rural areas throughout the Dominican Republic, which ultimately resulted in the preservation of twenty genres. As a result of this unique and culturally valuable project, earlier this year, the Grammy Foundation awarded her a “Preservation and Archive” grant for the creation of an archive in Dominican folk music.

Her recent album, Anacaona, is a 10-track compact disk featuring her explorations into the rich and varied world of Dominican Folk music which, as Irka revealed, has been preserved to this day by Dominicans from the most isolated and neglected areas of the Dominican Republic. Her music blends pop instrumentation with African and Taino percussion to create a soothing sound, accompanied by versatile lyrics in Spanish. The songs re-create the lost Taino world with tales of resistance, love and survival that are at the core of this musical offering. In spite of all the references to the past, this music remains new and modern. There lies its originality and, ultimately, its universal appeal.

At the recent International Dominican Writers Book Fair in Washington Heights, Irka was honored for her solid musical work and her contribution to the dissemination of the Dominican folkloric idiom rooted in the indigenous Taino culture, a shared legacy of both the Dominican Republic and Haiti.

A resident of Brooklyn, Irka recently performed in the Brooklyn Arts Council’s HALF THE SKY Festival: “The Sweetest Song: Women’s Traditional Song Sampler.” Judith J. Miller of Artist Soul Speaks said this about Irka´s performance: “I could feel Taino/Dominican singer, storyteller and folk music collector Irka Mateo’s determination and strength as her powerful voice literally vibrated through her small frame and out into the capacity filled auditorium. Irka performed a popular religious song – a mix of Catholic and West African Traditions – accompanying herself on the Balsie, a drum that women play. The other song was a work song performed a cappella sung by women in Agricultural endeavors.”

Dominican Get-togethers in the Big Apple, always free and open to the public, are part of the mission of the Global Foundation for Democracy and Development (GFDD) to promote an understanding and appreciation of Dominican culture, values and heritage, and to create opportunities for discussions of issues relevant to the Dominican society in the homeland and abroad. The GFDD reaches out to the Dominican community living the New York area, New Jersey, Florida, Washington DC and elsewhere, and to all those interested in Dominican culture.

To read more about Dominican Get-togethers in the Big Apple: www.dominicangettogethers.org/
To read more about Irka Mateo: http://www.irkamateo.org/