What to Do in Rio in September 2026: the First Semana de Arte and Nine Free Things

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11 to 27 September, Fridays and Saturdays 8pm, Sundays 7pm

A Pequena Prisão

Teatro Laura Alvim, Casa de Cultura Laura Alvim, Av. Vieira Souto 176, Ipanema · R$30–60 · 60 minutes · 16+

Nine performances only, after more than forty at the Teatro Poeira. Vino Fragoso plays over thirty characters in the first stage adaptation of Igor Mendes’s book on the Brazilian prison system. In Portuguese, and physical enough to follow without it.

9 to 24 September, Wednesdays and Thursdays, 7pm

Nicole Musafir — Pra Quem Não Me Conhece

Casa de Cultura Laura Alvim, Ipanema · Price from the venue

This is a short run of a one-woman show. Musafir built it out of the diaries she has kept since she was six. Blocked creatively for years, she went through the box and put what she found on stage; pianist Ceci Nery accompanies, with musical direction by Leo Valor. In Portuguese, and personal enough to reward the effort if you can follow it.

11 to 27 September, opening 11 September at 8pm

19º Niterói em Cena — International Theatre Festival

Theatro Municipal de Niterói and venues across the city · Free

Paulo Betti opens with his monologue Autobiografia Autorizada. What follows is free for seventeen days: companies from Angola, Georgia, Senegal, Mexico, Colombia, Paraguay and Peru, plus street theatre on the Praça João Saldanha. The street programme — clowning, acrobatics, the Peruvian Inka Clown Show — needs no language at all. Twenty minutes on the ferry from Praça Quinze.

16 to 27 September

Semana de Arte do Rio — first edition

Museums, cultural centres, theatres and galleries across the city · Varies; much of it free

More than ten festivals come under one banner for the first time. In addition, there are exhibitions, street interventions and events in both public and private venues. Part of the Centro Cultural Justiça Federal programme falls inside it. If you have one week of Rio in September to give to the city’s art scene, make it this one.

Wednesday 17 and Friday 19 September, 8pm

Carmem — Cia. de Dança Thiago Soares

Teatro Multiplan, VillageMall, Av. das Américas 3900, Barra da Tijuca · From R$110, through Sympla

Thiago Soares went from hip-hop in São Gonçalo to Principal at the Royal Ballet, and now runs his own company here. His Bizet is pulled towards Latin America and mixes classical technique with urban and contemporary vocabulary. Sasha De Sola, principal at San Francisco Ballet, dances both nights in her Brazilian debut — the run was consolidated from four dates to these two, and tickets for the cancelled performances remain valid through Sympla. Dance, so the language question does not arise.

Wednesday 16 September, 12.30pm and 5pm

RioHarpFestival opens — Walter Morato, and a harp-and-guitar duo

Museu Nacional de Belas Artes, Av. Rio Branco 199, Centro; then Associação Comercial, Rua da Candelária 9 · Free

The Argentine harpist Walter Morato opens the Latin American edition at the national fine-arts museum at 12.30pm. At 5pm the Paraguayan sisters Rosalía and Gabriela López play harp and guitar at the Commercial Association. Two free concerts in two buildings most visitors never get inside.

Thursday 17 September, 6pm

XXI RioHarpFestival — Luis Castro

Centro Cultural Justiça Federal, Av. Rio Branco 241, Centro · Free

The Venezuelan harpist plays the Latin American leg of the harp festival. Free, an hour long, and in the middle of the working city — the easiest good concert to walk into during Rio in September.

Friday 18 September, 12.30pm and 6pm

Navy wind sextet, then the Camerata do Uerê at the Palácio Tiradentes

Espaço Cultural da Marinha, Praça XV; then Palácio Tiradentes, Rua Primeiro de Março · Free

The Marine Corps symphonic band sends a wind sextet to the naval cultural centre at midday, with the Brazilian harpist Giovana Sanches. In the evening the Camerata do Uerê, made up of young musicians from the Maré favela complex, plays the old chamber of deputies with the Chilean harpist Christian Rodrigues.

Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 September, 1pm and 3pm

Harp weekend at the CCBB

Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rua Primeiro de Março 66, Centro · Free

The National Symphonic Band plays the ground-floor rotunda on the Saturday and an orchestra of ukuleles takes it on the Sunday, each with a guest harpist. Upstairs at 3pm on both days, Nicolas Almada and Letícia Rodriguez sing Uruguayan candombe and milonga. Turn up and walk in.

Saturday 19 September

Feira das Yabás at the CCBB

Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Centro · Free entry; food paid

A samba circle with Marquinhos de Oswaldo Cruz alongside the cooking that gives the fair its name — feijoada, angu à baiana, roast meat. The Feira das Yabás is normally a Madureira institution; catching it in Centro is the easy version.

Wednesday 16 September, 6pm

Diogo Nogueira opens the Semana de Arte with the Petrobras Symphony

Praça dos Arcos, Arcos da Lapa, Centro · Free

The official opening concert of the first Semana de Arte do Rio: the city’s reigning samba singer in front of the Orquestra Petrobras Sinfônica under the Lapa arches. Free, open-air, and the biggest single crowd-puller of the fortnight.

Thursday 17 September, 6.30pm

BNegão sings Dorival Caymmi at the Museum of Tomorrow

Museu do Amanhã, Praça Mauá, Centro · Free

The Carioca rapper takes on the Caymmi songbook as part of Rio Ocean Week, on the museum’s outdoor esplanade. Caymmi wrote about the sea; the setting does half the work.

Friday 18 September, from 4pm

Próxima Parada Samba: Mart’nália at the Capanema

Palácio Gustavo Capanema, Rua da Imprensa 16, Centro · Free

The former Ministry of Education — arguably the finest modernist building in the Americas — opens its forecourt for the samba strand of the Próxima Parada festival: Mart’nália on the Friday, a Beth Carvalho roda on the Saturday afternoon, and the Terreiro de Mangueira on the Sunday. The building alone justifies the bus ride; the music is free.

Friday 18 September, 7pm

Fafá de Belém at the Arcos da Lapa

Praça dos Arcos, Lapa · Free

The Pará singer headlines the free Amir Haddad festival strand under the arches, with carimbó from Baque Mulher and the Festa Xêpa DJs afterwards. The praça fills; arrive before seven.

Saturday 19 September, 2pm

Project Aquarius: Leci Brandão, Emicida and the Brazilian Symphony Orchestra

Praça Mauá, Centro · Free

The Orquestra Sinfônica Brasileira, conducted by Carlos Prazeres, meets rap and samba head-on: Emicida and Leci Brandão in front of the museum district, open-air, free. The most Rio concert of the month.

Saturday 19 September, 8pm

MIMO Rio, night one: Tiken Jah Fakoly, Fernanda Abreu

Circo Voador, Lapa · Free (advance ticket)

The travelling world-music festival opens its free Rio edition with Malian reggae heavyweight Tiken Jah Fakoly and Rio’s own Fernanda Abreu, plus the Cape Verdean-Portuguese rapper Capicua and DJ Reborn.

Sunday 20 September, 6pm

MIMO Rio, night two: Tinariwen, Capicua & Emicida

Circo Voador, Lapa · Free (advance ticket)

Tuareg guitar legends Tinariwen headline the second night, with the Capicua–Emicida meeting and the pianist Bianca Gismonti. Tickets are released in advance and go; the same programme would cost real money anywhere else.

Saturday 19 September, 8.30pm · Sunday 20 September, 6.30pm

Brasileirão in Rio: Vasco at São Januário, Flamengo at the Maracanã

Estádio São Januário (Vasco x Coritiba); Maracanã (Flamengo x RB Bragantino) · Tickets from the clubs and the usual outlets

Two home games close the league’s 28th round: Vasco host Coritiba in the tight, old-school ground on Saturday night, and Flamengo, still chasing the leaders, take on RB Bragantino at the Maracanã on Sunday. Ninety minutes of Brazilian football culture without a festival wristband.

Tuesday 22 September, 6pm

Madrigal Cruz Lopes at Santa Cruz dos Militares

Igreja Santa Cruz dos Militares, Rua Primeiro de Março, Centro · Free

Choral music under José Machado in an eighteenth-century garrison church, with the Venezuelan harpist Jesús Suárez as guest. The building is worth the walk on its own.

24 to 27 September

Mostra Violas Brasileiras: Da Raiz ao Contemporâneo

Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Centro · Free

Curated by Ivan Viela. The viola caipira is the instrument most foreigners never hear in Rio, because it belongs to the interior. Four days to correct that.

Saturday 26 and Sunday 27 September, 1pm and 3pm

The RioHarpFestival closes at the CCBB

Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rua Primeiro de Março 66, ground-floor rotunda and third-floor auditorium, Centro · Free

Harold Emert’s Camerata Viva Música takes the rotunda on the Saturday with the Venezuelan harpist Luis Castro. On the Sunday a bagpipe band closes the Latin American edition at 1pm — gaitas de foles under Maestro J. Paulo, which is not a sentence anyone expects to read about Rio — and Castro plays the last recital upstairs at 3pm with the Japanese musician Michinari Usuda.

Thursday 17 September, 7pm · Friday 18 September, 7pm

Quarteto Kalimera plays Nosferatu live

Sala Cecília Meireles, Rua da Lapa 47, Lapa · R$20 (half price)

The 1922 Murnau silent screened with a live score by a Rio quartet, in the best-sounding room in Lapa. Cinema-with-orchestra for the price of a cinema ticket.

Friday 18 September, 7pm

Angra — “Holy Land” turns 30

Vivo Rio, Av. Infante Dom Henrique 85, Parque do Flamengo · From R$75 (half price)

Rio’s own power-metal band plays its 1993 concept album end to end with a full production. Loud, local, and ten minutes from most hotel districts.

Friday 18 September, from 7pm

Dia do Cliente at Bar Bukowski

Bar Bukowski, Rua Álvaro Ramos 270, Botafogo · R$39.90 at the door (a drink included before 10pm); guest-list entry free from 1am

The Botafogo rock bar marks Cliente’s Day with the self-deprecating festa “Vocês nem sempre têm razão”: rock and pop across two floors, karaoke with prizes, a 2000s cover band, and a raffle that makes one customer “the owner’s friend” for the night — queue-jump, DJ requests and a R$500 tab included. Guest list via the bar’s Instagram.

Friday 18 September, 8pm

Thaís Fraga — Mais de 30 Anos de Bossa n’ Jazz

Vinícius Show, Ipanema · Price from the venue

Bossa nova, samba-jazz and jazz standards in the bar named for the poet, from a singer with three decades of that repertoire behind her. The trio includes Amaro Junior, Emílio Santiago’s historic drummer, brought up from São Paulo for the run.

Sunday 20 September, 3pm

Jorge Aragão at the Renascença Clube

Renascença Clube, Rua Barão de São Francisco 54, Andaraí · R$50 (half price)

The great Andaraí samba composer in the club where samba de raíz still runs the Sunday afternoon. Cheap food, cold beer, no stage tricks.

Wednesday 23 September

Malize — Baile da Saudade, live with band

Teatro Firjan SESI Centro · Price from the venue

The 27-year-old singer and producer from Rio’s Zona Norte performs the first single from his debut album. Alongside it, the venue screens the video that won backing from the Mosaico Rio 2026 fund. Both form part of the Mostra Firjan SESI. MPB as a foundation with everything else layered on top.

Monday 21 September, 7pm

Canto pela Democracia: Cordão do Boitatá, with Geraldo Azevedo, Sandra de Sá and Diogo Nogueira

Teatro Riachuelo, Rua do Passeio 40, Cinelândia · R$40 advance

The travelling democracy festival lands at the Riachuelo with a bill that reads like an MPB family tree: Geraldo Azevedo, Sandra de Sá, Diogo Nogueira and Moysés Marques around the Cordão do Boitatá collective.

Monday 21 September, 8pm

Lauren Jauregui

Teatro Clara Nunes, Shopping da Gávea, Gávea · From R$150 (half price)

The week’s biggest international pop booking: the former Fifth Harmony singer’s first Rio solo date, in an intimate theatre above the Gávea shopping centre.

Tuesday 22 September, 6.30pm

Mariana Aydar at the Theatro João Caetano

Praça Tiradentes, Centro · R$2.50 (half price)

Not a typo: the municipal theatre’s pricing policy puts one of Brazil’s smartest MPB singers within reach of a bus fare. The building, from 1813, is the oldest working theatre in the city.

Tuesday 22 September, 8pm

Cida Moreira

Teatro Ipanema, Rua Prudente de Morais 824, Ipanema · R$50 (half price)

The deep-voiced interpreter of the Brazilian songbook in the pocket theatre two blocks from the beach.

Wednesday 23 September, 8pm

Teresa Cristina at the Teatro Riachuelo

Rua do Passeio 40, Cinelândia · From R$50 (half price)

The sambista’s sambista in the plush reopened theatre on the boulevard. If you only know the name from records, the live timing is the revelation.

Thursday 24 September, 8pm

Aguidavi do Jêje, with Chico César, Gilsons and Pretinho da Serrinha

Circo Voador, Lapa · R$70 (half price)

The Tocantins singer-songwriter’s biggest Rio date yet, with guests spanning generations: Chico César, the Gilsons, Pretinho da Serrinha and Carlinhos 7 Cordas.

Thursday 24 September, 8pm

Marcelo D2 at Rio Gastronomia

Jockey Club Brasileiro, Rua Jardim Botânico 1003, Gávea · R$40 (half price)

The rapper closes a week of food-and-music programming at the Jockey Club’s food festival, with the Botafogo and Corcovado views thrown in. Eat first; he goes on at eight.

Friday 25 September, 7pm

Zélia Duncan at Vivo Rio

Av. Infante Dom Henrique 85, Parque do Flamengo · From R$60 (half price)

The singer in full band at the Flamengo park auditorium — the month’s biggest room dedicated to Brazilian song.

Friday 25 September, 8pm

Cachorro Grande and Vanguart at the Circo Voador

Lapa · R$70 (half price)

A Porto Alegre rock double bill: Cachorro Grande’s retro-groove with Vanguart’s psychedelia, in the Lapa tent on a Friday.

Friday 25 September, 8.30pm

Baile Charme de Madureira at the Capanema

Palácio Gustavo Capanema, Rua da Imprensa 16, Centro · Free

Twelve years of the charm baile that put Madureira’s black-music scene on the national map, played free in the Capanema forecourt as part of the Próxima Parada festival.

Saturday 26 September, 7.30pm

Petrobras Symphony honours Moacir Santos, then Hamilton de Holanda

Praça dos Arcos, Arcos da Lapa · Free

The Orquestra Petrobras Sinfônica plays the great composer-arranger’s orchestral music with Fabiana Cozza and Marcos Sacramento, and Hamilton de Holanda’s trio closes the night. Free, under the arches.

Saturday 26 September, 8pm

Ave Sangria, Papangu and Zepelim at the Circo Voador

Lapa · R$80 (half price)

Pernambuco psych-rock from the 1970s — Ave Sangria, reformed and on form — with Recife’s current experimentalists Papangu. The month’s best double bill for guitar music.

Sunday 27 September, 4pm

Festival Solar: a tribute to Ney Matogrosso

Praça dos Arcos, Arcos da Lapa · Free

Juliana Linhares, Linn da Quebrada, MC Tha, Tássia Reis and Xênia França take on the maestro’s repertoire — the most interesting free bill of the closing weekend, and the last big day of the Semana de Arte.

Until 4 December

The Jazz Room: a Sinatra and Armstrong tribute

Teatro Rival Petrobras, Rua Álvaro Alvim 33, Cinelândia · From R$100

The Rival’s long-running tribute evening — the American songbook with a live band in the Art Deco theatre off Cinelândia. The reliable option when nothing else on this list fits the night.

Saturday 26 September

Seal — 30 years

Qualistage, Barra da Tijuca · Price from the venue

The thirtieth-anniversary tour. A large, comfortable room and a set of songs most people in it will know by heart.

Saturday 26 September, 6pm

Tribute to Luiz Carlos de Moura Castro — Palácio São Clemente

Portuguese Consulate, Rua São Clemente 424, Botafogo · Free

Martin Almeida at the piano, with Jesús Suárez on harp, in a posthumous tribute to the pianist who was a long-standing partner of the series. The consulate residence opens for it, which is reason enough to go.

Tuesday 29 September, 6pm

Recorders and voices at the Forte de Copacabana

Museu do Exército, Forte de Copacabana, Praça Cel. Eugênio Franco 1, Posto 6 · Free

The recorder ensemble Fino Som and the vocal group Vozes Encanto play international classics, directed by Nelma Pataro. The fort sits on the rocks at the end of Copacabana beach and the view alone carries the evening.

Wednesday 30 September, 12.30pm

Mignone, 40 anos de saudade — the month closes at the CCBB

Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rua Primeiro de Março 66, 4th floor, Centro · Free

Five pianists mark forty years since the death of Francisco Mignone, one of the central figures of Brazilian concert music, with video testimony from the composer between the pieces. A good last free hour of Rio in September.

September

Festival Oficina da Ópera

Theatro Municipal, Cinelândia, Centro · Price from the box office

The Municipal’s September strand brings Mascagni’s Cavalleria Rusticana and Donizetti’s Il Campanello. The building alone justifies the ticket; it was modelled on the Paris Opera and finished in 1909.

16 to 20 September

Festival Rio Cello

Churches and halls across Centro — Igreja de Santa Cruz dos Militares, the Sala Mário Tavares by the Theatro Municipal, BNDES · Free

Five days of cello recitals within a fifteen-minute walk of Cinelândia: the Salles Geiger duo on the 16th, Gilson Peranzzetta with Mauro Senise and David Chew on the 18th, Victor Biglione with the Rice Cello Ensemble at BNDES on the 19th, and the Lindarte Plano Quartet at the Municipal’s annexe on the 20th. All free.

Through September

21st RioHarpFestival and Música no Museu

Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil and partner venues · Mostly free

Twenty-three harp concerts run from 16 to 27 September inside the Semana de Arte, all of them free — at the CCBB, tickets are handed out at the box office from 9am on the day. They sit alongside the Música no Museu series, which is in its twenty-ninth year and puts classical music into museums, palaces and churches at no charge. The September dates are listed individually above: the CCBB on the 9th and the 30th, the Museu Nacional de Belas Artes on the 16th, the Palácio Tiradentes on the 18th, the Palácio São Clemente on the 26th and the Forte de Copacabana on the 29th. One of the best-value things in the city and almost unknown to new arrivals.

Until 12 October

Vik Muniz — season extended

Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Centro · Free

Brazil’s most internationally recognised living visual artist, in the show that has been held over. If you see one exhibition this month, this is the one to see.

2 September to 16 November

Amazônicas — Poéticas Femininas

Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Centro · Free

Sissa Aneleh curates work by women from the North of Brazil. The reading is decolonial, and it foregrounds Afro-indigenous ancestry. Furthermore, the show uses virtual and augmented-reality elements.

September

African Cinema showcase

Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil cinemas, Centro · Free or low cost

Ten features and six contemporary shorts. Given how little African cinema reaches Brazilian screens, this is the rare chance.

Until late September

Coleção Ingá: Brasil Plural — final weeks

Centro Cultural Justiça Federal, Centro · Free

Around 200 works come from the Museu de História e Artes do Estado. Among them are Di Cavalcanti, Portinari, Goeldi and Mestre Guarany. The CCJF’s September programme also runs open-air cinema, short-film and Spanish-cinema seasons, choral concerts, flamenco, choro and indigenous music, literary workshops and two theatre productions — nearly all of it free.

Until 10 October, Tuesday to Saturday, midday to 7pm

Inefável Presença — nine painters from one Tijuca studio

Centro Cultural dos Correios, R. Visc. de Itaboraí 20, Centro · Free

Nine artists have shared a studio in Tijuca for seven years. Ayla de Oliveira curates the show, and also exhibits in it. The group formed around a life-drawing class at the UFRJ fine arts school in 2017 and kept meeting on Monday evenings. Figurative painting, unfashionable for a while, now finding buyers.