Fife and drum form one of the most widespread instrumental combinations in the Brazilian inlands and is the source for Cataventoré’s musical work. The band began its carrier in the year 2000 in Belo Horizonte, the city best known as the birthplace for the Clube da Esquina Movement (Milton Nascimento, Toninho Horta and others). But it was the traditional culture of Northeast Brazil and Minas Gerais State that set the artistic path of the group. The instrumentation includes fifes, rebec, cavaquinho (small acoustic guitar), acordion, zabumba (bass drum), tambourine, snare drum, side drum, triangle, cymbals, maracas, reco-reco (scraping instrument), agogo, whistles and more. Several of the instruments are made by the band members themselves. Through presenting a variety of elements of Brazilian culture, together with an appreciable compositional work, Cataventoré pushed itself in the local music scene, around the country and abroad.

In 2004, the band made its first studio work, when it was one of the eight winners, among 550 participants in the contest festival “Conexão Telemig Celular de Música: New trends in the music of Minas Gerais”. In the festival’s resulting collective CD, the group recorded one of the tracks along with Uakti’s members Paulo Santos and Décio Ramos. In 2008, came the first album, “Cataventoré”, an essentially authorial work, that includes eight compositions by the band and two other tracks, by Brazilian Northeastern composers. The CD was well received by the public and launched in the following year in a tour around Brazilian States of São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Bahia, Pernambuco, Ceará and Pará. One of the album tracks, the samba “No terreiro”, was selected to the CD dedicated to the contemporary musical scene from Minas Gerais State, that accompanied the British Magazine Songlines issue #70, from aug-sep/2010.

In a very uplifting and dancing performance, the band presents its own compositions, as well as a Brazilian instrumental and traditional repertoire, that covers different genres and rhythms, such as samba, chorinho, congado, maracatu and a selection of baiões and arrasta-pés in the best Brazilian fife-and-drum tradition.