Professionally, she worked with music education, working as a teacher for children, teenagers and adults. She was professor at the Cantareira University for five years, working as co-repeater and Music Theory teacher, preparing students for college entrance exams, in addition to teaching private lessons at home. As a pianist, she also performed in musicals like “The Wizard of Oz” (Alfa Theater in Sao Paulo and Santiago, Chile), “Community” (Theater of “Edifício Itália” – Building Italia) “Aida” (“Cultura Artística” Theater), “Cats” and “Mamamia” (“Abril” Theater).
She worked as a pianist in trio (piano, bass, drums) in the “Família Mancini”, famous restaurants with live music in São Paulo, with the repertoire Jazz / Brazilian Music for two years, seven nights a week. Also with the Bambu group (Brazilian music quartet) she participated in the Sixth Instrumental Brazil, sponsored by the Center for Music Tom Jobim in 2005 and 2006, winning first place in the solo category and third place in the group category.
Abelita was also pianist of the “Banda Jazz Sinfônica de Diadema”, a Big Band, performing regularly for five years. Some guests in Diadema were Hermeto Pascoal, Proveta, Bocato, Vania Bastos, Vinicius Dorim, Ulisses Rocha, Fabiana Cozza, Zé Eduardo Nazario, among others. In 2009 she recorded with the Banda Jazz Sinfônica de Diadema an album in tribute to Noel Rosa. The guests were Fabiana Cozza, Raul de Souza and Nailor “Proveta” Azevedo. In 2010 and 2011 the band participated in the “Virada Cultural de São Paulo”, and in July 2011 the Band was invited to perform at the “Montreux Jazz Festival”, in Switzerland, in two shows.
In 2010 Abelita Mateus was invited to participate in “Piano na Praça” (solo piano), an event that is part of the “Virada Cultural de Sao Paulo”, performing a repertoire that included jazz, mpb and classical music. In 2009 and 2010 had sporadic vocal lessons with Tatiana Parra and Ludmila de Carvalho, but in 2011, with Wagner Barbosa and Ronnie Kneblewski, she began her vocal studies.
In January 2012 she began her Master in Jazz Performance at William Paterson University in New Jersey, where she has had a wonderful opportunity to study with names as Mulgrew Miller, Armen Donelian, Vincent Herring, among others.
Currently she is working with her quintet, also taking vocal lessons, composing her own music and getting ready to record her first album. She is playing in different venues in New York, with names as Itaiguara Brandão, Portinho, Oleg Osenkov, Eduardo Belo, John Lee, Alex Kautz, Peter Slavov and Claudio Roditi.
