Friday: 8 p.m. Kenduskeag; Saturday: 2:30 p.m. Kenduskeag; Sunday: 12:30 p.m. Kenduskeag

Surrounded by local legend and enriched by a multiethnic past, vallenato, the music of Colombia’s coastal region, has become one of the country’s most popular styles. Sensacion Vallenata con Gustavo Nieto, a Maryland-based ensemble, brings this traditional, acoustic dance music to festival audiences.

Colombian folk tales attribute the invention of vallenato to Francisco “El Hombre,” a man who once beat the devil in an accordion-playing duel. Vallenato stems from three influences: South American Indian, European and African.

Indigenous musical traditions, using cane flutes, emphasize rhythmic intensity rather than melodic complexity. This feature, along with instruments such as the guacharaca (a scraped percussion instrument), carry over from native traditions into contemporary vallenato. The African influence is heard in specific rhythms used, including son, paseo, puya and merengue, along with the small drum called a caja. As for the European influences, legend has it that a German accordion washed up on Colombia’s shores after a shipwreck off the coast.

Since immigrating to the United States, Gustavo Nieto has lived in New York, Chicago and now in the Washington, D.C., area. He grew up with an older style of vallenato and today tends to stick to the traditional end of the vallenato spectrum. After moving to Washington’s Maryland suburbs in the early 1990s, Nieto and his group began performing at a club in Wheaton, Md.

Sensacion Vallenata performs in a variety of settings, from weddings and community celebrations to performances at the Organization of American States and the Colombian Embassy in Washington. Joining Nieto for this year’s festival will be Umberto Pajaro on caja, Javier Zaldua in vocals, Richard Bonilla on timbales, Albin Munoz on guacharaca, Ricardo Pinto on congas and Jose Ruiz on bass.