John Monteiro

John Monteiro, stage name Joao Cerilo and also known as “Mr. Po D’Terra,” is a Cape Verdean musician originally from the island of Santiago. He lives and works in Rhode Island, where he has performed both traditional and creative synthesizer-driven versions of Cape Verdean music and dance forms such as funaná, tchabeta, and batuku in clubs and community settings. Joao Cerilo, who plays gaeta, a Cape Verdean accordion, has produced several albums from 1981 to 2015. His performances have taken place at the Working Waterfront Festival in New Bedford, Massachusetts, Accordion Festivals in Texas and New York, Cape Verdean Independence Day at Fox Point, Rhode Island, the Lowell Folk Festival in Massachusetts in 2008, Cape Verdean clubs and restaurants in New England and internationally. He formed a traditional music group known as Pilon Batuku, featuring his cousins Eurico and Jose Semedo playing ferinho, a scraped iron stick that is often heard in Cape Verdean music. Pilon Batuku often included dance performances by New Bedford-based Cape Verdean dancer Maria Rodrigues. CCHAP and colleague Winifred Lambrecht encouraged Joao’s traditional music, recording him and including him in the Southern New England Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program four times, to collaborate and teach Eurico and José Semedo funaná, the Waterbury dance group Warm Heart, and the Norwich dance group Estrellas, from 1998-2001 and 2006-2007.