The driving beats and intricate rhythms of top Cajun, Hungarian and Greek music ensembles will soon be heard on Vashon, thanks to a passionate advocate who believes that ethnic music is the real soundtrack to American life.

A free outdoor concert series, slated to take place at Ober Park on Monday evenings, Aug. 6, 13, and 20, is curated by Martin Koenig, an Islander whose life’s work has been to discover and promote community-based traditional arts and ethnic dance and music traditions.

The upcoming concerts, he said, are meant to bring Islanders of all ages together to discover and celebrate a wide world of music.

“It’s the kind of music you’ll find in church basements and banquet halls all across America,” he said. “If you’re driving across the country and you see a banquet hall, stop. You’ll be shocked by what is going on in there. Go along the New Jersey turnpike, and you’ll find celebrations of Indian weddings and Albanian Muslim circumcisions taking place in banquet halls. … The face of Vashon is very different from the rest of the country. The music I bring to the free concert series is, I think, the music of America.”

Koenig also aims to get audiences up and dancing.

The shows are participatory — concert-goers can learn dance steps to traditional folk dances that match the music. Partners aren’t necessary, and everyone is encouraged to move to the music. The whole point, Koenig said, is to create “an intergenerational conversation through music and dance.”

Koenig — who has presented the series for the past six years in collaboration with Vashon Park District and 14 years before that on his own, at various Island locations — has cast a wide net to find performers for the series. He said he purposefully planned the series for Monday nights — a time when A-list world music performers would be available for a show, as well as a night when he faces little competition for audiences on Vashon.

“On Mondays, we’re the only show in town,” he said. “We have a possibility for both audience and artists. Some of people we get to come here typically charge $8,000 to $9,000 for a concert.”

The first show of the series, set for this Monday, will present the Cajun Country Revival, playing the rural dance music of Louisiana and the honky-tonks of east Texas.

Led by elder Cajun accordionist Jesse Lege, the Cajun Country Revival also features Cajun fiddle wunderkind Joel Savoy and the young roots country masters of the Caleb Klauder Country Band — a group including Sammy Lind and Nadine Landry of the Foghorn Trio. Dances will be taught by MaryLee Lykes.

The following Monday, Aug. 13, Duvo Ensemble, a Hungarian group, will take the stage. This four-piece string band is made up of three fiddlers, an upright bassist and a vocalist. They play a vast repertoire from all ethnic groups of the Carpathian basin, employing a wide range of traditional instruments. They have released nine major recordings, won several prestigious awards and actively tour as musicians and teachers at music and dance camps throughout Europe and the United States. On Vashon, they’ll be joined by two dancers, who will perform and teach dances to audience members.

The final concert in the series, on Aug. 20, will feature Dromeno, a Greek ensemble led by multi-instrumentalist Christos Govetas. Based in Seattle, the six-member group has a taste for old-style dance music — they are equally at home playing ballads from the mountains of Epiros in Greece, lively tunes from the Bulgarian, Yugoslavian and Albanian border areas or Roma dances from the Gypsy quarters in Macedonia. The group’s instrumentation includes clarinet, accordion, guitar, saxophone, percussion, voice and bouzouki. Koenig, a skilled and experienced dancer, will teach willing participants how to dance to the traditional tunes.

Koenig, now in his early 70s, said he’s lived long enough to see some of the music he has championed all these years begin to get a broader audience. Balkan music, he said, is big now.

“It’s fabulous, the music is just so soulful and brilliant,” he said. “I got exposed to it while I traveled the back roads of the Balkans in the 1960s and 70s.”

Now, he said, his teenage son is a fan of the group Balkan Beat Box, an American-Israeli band and one of several that has begun popularizing music that incorporates Balkan, Middle Eastern and Roma traditions, mixing it up with elements of punk and electronica.

“It’s not even a resurgence,” Koenig said. “It’s the first time this music has gotten a hipster audience. It never had that audience before.”

IF YOU GO

Mondays at Ober Park World Music Concerts, with participatory dancing, start at 6:30 p.m. on Aug. 6, 13, and 20. The free shows are sponsored and produced by the Vashon Folk Dancers, Barking Rooster Productions and the Vashon Park District. Bring your own lawn chairs or blankets for seating.