Formerly living in Santiago and now in Brooklyn, New York, Dominican singer and songwriter Irka Mateo has been awarded US$5,000 by the Grammy Foundation for research into rare recordings of Dominican folk music played for popular religious events. Her work expands on previous work done by Fradique Lizardo (1930-1997) housed at the Centro Leon. The goal of the project is to initiate preservation consultation efforts that focus on musical recordings celebrating Liborio Mateo, a religious leader and healer who lived in San Juan de la Maguana. Mateo was among 18 recipients of the prestigious awards as part of the US$250,000 in grants to facilitate music research, archiving and sound preservation granted by the Grammy Foundation to recipients in the US, Canada and the Dominican Republic. “For nearly 25 years, our Grammy Foundation Grant Program has been a leader in funding an extraordinary range of scientific research, archiving, and preservation projects,” said Neil Portnow, President\/CEO of The Recording Academy? and the Grammy Foundation, upon making the announcement last week. For more information on the artist, see www.irkamateo.org<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Formerly living in Santiago and now in Brooklyn, New York, Dominican singer and songwriter Irka Mateo has been awarded US$5,000 by the Grammy Foundation for research into rare recordings of Dominican folk music played for popular religious events. Her work expands on previous work done by Fradique Lizardo (1930-1997) housed at the Centro Leon. The … <\/p>\n