Avi Avital and Hamilton de Holanda Play a Rio Charity Concert on 3 October 2026 for Brazil’s TUCCA

BRAZIL · LIVE MUSIC

Avi Avital plays a Baroque instrument that Brazil already had, under another name — and the concert’s proceeds go to a São Paulo children’s cancer service.

The Concert and the Cause

Avi Avital and Hamilton de Holanda perform together in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday, 3 October 2026, at the Pavilhão Santa Teresa. The concert belongs to Música pela Cura, the fundraising programme that the Brazilian charity TUCCA has run for more than twenty years.

TUCCA is a non-profit association working in paediatric oncology. It funds and supports treatment for children and adolescents with cancer, and the concert series is one of its principal sources of money outside public funding.

The pairing is unusual on record as well as on paper. Avital is an Israeli mandolinist who records for Deutsche Grammophon and works largely in the Baroque and contemporary classical repertoire. Hamilton de Holanda is the most prominent living player of the Brazilian bandolim.

Two days later the same programme reaches São Paulo, where Avital plays Sala São Paulo on 5 October at 8.30 p.m. with a Baroque orchestra. That concert is separately ticketed through TUCCA’s own platform.

Two Instruments, One Family

The mandolin and the bandolim are close relatives. Both descend from the Italian mandolin that travelled with migration, and both have eight strings in four courses. The Brazilian instrument developed its own build and, in Hamilton de Holanda’s case, a ten-string variant.

What separates them is repertoire rather than construction. The European instrument carried Vivaldi and later the folk traditions of the Mediterranean. The Brazilian one became the lead voice of choro, the instrumental style that grew in Rio in the late nineteenth century.

Choro is the reason this meeting makes musical sense. It is a written, virtuosic form with a fixed structure, closer in discipline to chamber music than to samba. Its players read and improvise in roughly equal measure, which is exactly the ground a Baroque specialist can meet them on.

Jacob do Bandolim, who died in 1969, is the figure both traditions point at. Avital and de Holanda have performed his composition “Santa Morena” together, which is the clearest illustration of what the two instruments do to each other.

What Is Confirmed and What Is Not

The date and the venue are on the artist’s published tour calendar: Rio de Janeiro on 3 October, Pavilhão Santa Teresa. TUCCA’s own pages carry the São Paulo concert on 5 October with its time and hall.

The Rio start time and the ticket price tiers were not published on TUCCA’s own site at the time of writing. Reports point to Sympla as the ticketing platform. Anyone planning to attend should confirm both on the listing before making arrangements.

This is worth stating plainly rather than filling in. Benefit concerts often change halls or times late, because the programme depends on artists donating dates around their touring schedule.

The safest approach is to search the charity’s name and the date together, rather than relying on secondary listings, which in this case disagree about the afternoon start.

Santa Teresa, and Why the Setting Matters

Santa Teresa sits on a hill above Lapa and the city centre, reached by a restored tram, by taxi or on foot up a steep incline. It is a district of nineteenth-century houses, studios and small hotels, and it is one of the few parts of central Rio with a settled cultural circuit.

The Pavilhão is a small venue by concert-hall standards. That suits two mandolins, which do not project like a piano and lose detail in a large room. The instrument rewards a short distance between player and listener.

For a foreign resident the practical notes are the same as for any Santa Teresa evening. The tram runs on a limited schedule, the streets are poorly lit in places, and a ride app to the door is the straightforward choice after dark.

The charity framing also changes what the ticket is. This is not a commercial concert with a donation attached. The programme exists to raise money, and the artists appear without a fee. That is worth knowing before comparing the price with an ordinary night out.

It also explains the scheduling. Both Rio and São Paulo dates sit inside a short window while Avital is in the country, and neither is part of a commercial Brazilian tour. There is no second chance later in the season.

Sources

• Songkick — Avi Avital tour dates, Rio de Janeiro 3 October 2026
• TUCCA — Avi Avital com Orquestra Barroca, Sala São Paulo
• Cadogan Hall — Avi Avital and Hamilton de Holanda, Music for the Cure

FAQ

Frequently Asked Questions

Where and when is the Rio concert?

At the Pavilhão Santa Teresa in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday, 3 October 2026. The start time was not published on the charity’s own pages when this article was written, so confirm it on the ticket listing.

What is TUCCA?

TUCCA is a Brazilian non-profit working in paediatric oncology, which funds treatment for children and adolescents with cancer. Its Música pela Cura concert programme has raised money for that work for more than two decades.

What is the difference between a mandolin and a bandolim?

They are the same instrument family, both with eight strings in four courses. The bandolim developed separately in Brazil as the lead voice of choro, and Hamilton de Holanda plays a ten-string version of it.

Is there another chance to hear Avi Avital in Brazil?

Yes. He plays Sala São Paulo on 5 October 2026 at 8.30 p.m. with a Baroque orchestra, in a programme of Vivaldi and Bach. That concert is ticketed separately through TUCCA.

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