Matuto’s songs can sway hips just as easily as spark insights. Drawing on Northeastern Brazil’s folkloric rhythms like forró, maracatu, or coco, and on deep Americana—from bluegrass to spirituals to swampy Louisiana jams—Matuto uses unexpected Pan-American sonic sympathies to craft appealing, rootsy, yet philosophical tales of love, self-discovery, nostalgia, and true peace.

The mix of bluegrass and forró, of Mehta and Mardi Gras, has proven to have real legs, taking the band from club dates in the Deep South to diplomacy-minded State Department tours across Eastern Europe and West Africa. A showcase in Copenhagen got the band a gig at one of the most staunchly traditional festivals in Recife, the Feast of St. John, Brazil’s biggest forró event. The traditionalists get it: Matuto has distilled some of the spirit of the music, even as they have blended it with other sounds, and kept its steamy, sensual dance side intact.

Awarded the title of “American Musical Ambassadors” by the U.S. State Department, Matuto has performed in Brazil, Ireland, the U.K., Macedonia, Greece, Kosovo, Turkey, Mozambique, Ivory Coast, Cameroon, Ghana and Senegal and now in Scottsbluff, Nebraska.

Matuto will be joined by the Students from the Scottsbluff Public Schools Orchestra.