Frevo

Frevo is the carnival music of Recife and Olinda in Brazil's Pernambuco state: a fast, virtuosic orchestral form played by brass-and-reed bands at a tempo dancers match with the acrobatic passo, umbrella in hand. It divides into frevo-de-rua, the instrumental street form driven by trumpets, trombones and saxophones over snare and surdo; the sung, more lyrical frevo-de-bloco; and frevo-canção, its song form. Composers such as *Nelson Ferreira*, *Levino Ferreira* and *Capiba* built a repertoire of extreme technical difficulty, and since 2004 the *SpokFrevo Orquestra* has carried the form into concert halls as frevo-jazz.