What to Do in Rio in September 2026: Rock in Rio, the First Semana de Arte and Nine Free Things
Rio de Janeiro · Culture
Seven nights of Rock in Rio, a national holiday that shuts the city centre, the first Semana de Arte, opera at the Municipal, and nine things you can walk into for nothing.
RIO DE JANEIRO — There is a great deal to do in Rio in September, and very little of it is written down anywhere in English. This guide is the first of a monthly selection for people who live here rather than visit: what is on, where, when, what it costs, and why it might be worth crossing the city for. Nine of the entries below are free.
Two dates shape Rio in September. Rock in Rio takes seven nights across two weekends and moves a large part of the city west to Barra. And Monday 7 September is a national holiday that closes Avenida Presidente Vargas — the same day Elton John plays. Plan accordingly.
Rock in Rio: four nights still to come
7, 11, 12 and 13 September · gates 2pm, music to 3am
Rock in Rio 2026
Cidade do Rock, Parque Olímpico, Av. Embaixador Abelardo Bueno, Barra da Tijuca · Tickets through Ticketmaster only · 16+
The single biggest thing happening in Rio in September: 45 international acts, 15 of them playing nowhere else on the tour. Tonight, 7 September: Elton John, Gilberto Gil, Jon Batiste, and Luísa Sonza with Roberto Menescal. 11th: Stray Kids. 12th: Maroon 5. 13th: twenty one pilots.
Practical notes
Getting in and out
Cidade do Rock, Barra da Tijuca · —
Gates open at 2pm. Last entry is at midnight, and the programme runs until 3am. Therefore, work out the journey home before you go: taxis at 3am in Barra are their own event. Under-16s need a legal guardian and under-fives are not admitted at all. Tickets are sold exclusively through Ticketmaster; anything offered anywhere else is not a ticket.
Running now
3 to 13 September, Thursday to Saturday 7pm, Sunday 6pm
Vida de Cão — Uma Amizade Fora da Coleira
Teatro Dulcina (Funarte), R. Alcindo Guanabara 17, Centro · From R$10
Pivo Maia and Claudio Amado play a man worn down by his own diary and the stray dog who interrupts it. Ten reais is the cheapest theatre ticket in Centro this month, and the Dulcina is two minutes from Cinelândia metro. In Portuguese, but it is a two-hander built on physical comedy rather than dialogue you have to catch every word of.
Monday 7 September: the holiday that closes Centro
Monday 7 September, ceremony from 8.15am, parade from 9.30am
Independence Day civic-military parade
Avenida Presidente Vargas, in front of the Palácio Duque de Caxias, Centro · Free
The one public holiday of Rio in September: Brazil marks 204 years of independence. The ceremony begins at 8.15am with the review of the troops. Then the symbolic flame arrives between 9 and 9.25. Finally, the parade itself starts at 9.30 and runs to about 11.30. Navy, Army and Air Force, plus public-security bodies, students and civil institutions. It is a national holiday: banks, offices and most shops are shut. Road closures in the centre run through to 3am on the Monday, so if you are heading to Rock in Rio the same evening, leave early and do not plan to drive through Centro.
Monday 7 September, 3pm, 5pm and 8pm
Quero ser Elke Maravilha
Teatro Candido Mendes, R. Joana Angélica 63, Ipanema · R$60, R$30 concessions, Sympla
Three shows on the holiday, in Ipanema and so nowhere near the Centro road closures. Igor Castilho’s monologue marks ten years since the death of Elke Maravilha — born in Leningrad, brought to Brazil at four, fluent in eight languages, and for decades the most gloriously unclassifiable person on Brazilian television. Seventy minutes, in Portuguese. Two free tickets per session are held for trans audience members and one for drag artists. No entry once it starts.
Monday 7 September, 5pm
Dora — Grace Gianoukas
Teatro dos Quatro, Shopping da Gávea, R. Marquês de São Vicente 52, Gávea · R$25 to R$140, Eventim or the box office
The last session falls on the holiday Monday, for one of the better-reviewed plays of Rio in September. Grace Gianoukas, a fixture of Brazilian stage and television comedy for four decades, carries sixty minutes alone as a woman who thought her life was already written. In Portuguese, but broad and physical, and the box office charges no booking fee. The Gávea shopping centre has covered parking — useful on a Rock in Rio night.
From Wednesday 9 September
Thursday 10 September, 8pm (doors 7pm)
Batida Diferente — the art of Maurício Einhorn
JClub, Casa de Arte e Cultura Julieta de Serpa, Praia do Flamengo 340, Flamengo · R$120, R$60 concession, or R$70 with 1 kg of non-perishable food · 18+
At 94, Einhorn is one of the harmonica players who made the instrument part of bossa nova and samba-jazz, and he is still working. An evening of instrumental Brazilian music in a Belle Époque mansion on the bay — no Portuguese required, and the sort of thing that stops being possible without warning.
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.
Saturday 12 September, 5pm
Eliane canta Elis e Elizeth
Centro da Música Carioca Artur da Távola, Rua Conde de Bonfim 824, Tijuca · R$30–60 · All ages
Pianist and singer Eliane Salek turns from Ary Barroso to the two voices that defined Brazilian song, Elis Regina and Elizeth Cardoso, through Chico Buarque, Ivan Lins, Pixinguinha and Vinícius. A neighbourhood music house in the Tijuca, well off the tourist track.
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.
Wednesday 9 September
Reading Club with João Silvério Trevisan
Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Centro · Free
The writer joins the CCBB reading club to talk about sexuality, memory and diversity in literature. Trevisan has been writing on those subjects since before it was safe to.
Wednesday 9 September, 12.30pm
Duo AMnis — Música no Museu at the CCBB
Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rua Primeiro de Março 66, 4th floor, Centro · Free
Maria Luiza Lundberg on piano and Maurício Silva on clarinet play a programme called O Amor e a voz. The series is a listed piece of Rio’s intangible cultural heritage, it has run without a break since 1997, and every concert is free. Lunchtime, an hour long, and no Portuguese required.
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.
Saturday 12 September, from 6.30pm
Live rock at the Rio Tap Beer House
Travessa dos Tamoios 32, loja C, Flamengo · Price from the venue
Lucas Sgreccia’s blues-rock looping set, one man with a guitar and a loop pedal. A craft-beer bar with a step-free toilet that takes dogs, and the calmest way to hear live rock in Rio in September without going anywhere near Barra.
Saturday 12 September
Tasha e Tracie
Circo Voador, Lapa · Price from the venue
The São Paulo twins who turned a fashion and music blog into a rap career. One for a younger room than most of this list.
16 to 27 September: the first Semana de Arte do Rio
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.
16 to 19 September, 8pm; also Saturday 4pm
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, guests on the 17th and 19th at 8pm in her Brazilian debut. 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, 12.30pm
XXI RioHarpFestival — Walter Morato at the Museu da Justiça
Museu da Justiça, Rua Dom Manuel 29, Centro · Free
The Argentine harpist plays the old jury room of the Tribunal do Júri, a courtroom turned museum that is rarely open for anything else. A hundred and twenty seats, and no ticket.
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.
Monday 21 to Friday 25 September, 12.30pm and 3pm
Harp at lunchtime: five weekdays at the CCBB
Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, Rua Primeiro de Março 66, third-floor auditorium, Centro; and the Liceu Literário Português, Rua Almirante Barroso 118, on the 22nd · Free
The quiet middle of the festival, and the easiest thing on this list to walk into on a working day. Nicolas Almada and Letícia Rodriguez sing Uruguayan candombe and milonga on the 21st, 23rd and 24th; Rafael Deboleto plays on the 21st and, at the Liceu, on the 22nd; Alessandro Aguiar pairs harp and Japanese koto with a French horn on the 23rd; the Paraguayan Júlio César Villaalta takes the 24th and 25th, and the Venezuelan Luis Castro the 25th. A hundred and six seats, sung in Spanish or not sung at all.
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.
Late September
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.
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.
Opera and orchestras in 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.
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.
Free all month in Rio in September
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.
September
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.
Planning your Rio in September
Where we have not printed a ticket price, the organisers did not publish one — check with the venue before you travel. Programmes at the CCBB, the Theatro Municipal and the CCJF change during Rio in September, so confirm on the day.
This guide to Rio in September runs monthly, and returns in October. If you run a venue, a gallery or a production in Rio and would like to be considered, write to the newsroom with the date, the time, the address and the ticket price. Those four things are what get an event into the list.
More on living here: our Rio de Janeiro coverage and Expats in Brazil.
Background: BRICS Just Got Bigger — Who’s In, Who’s Still Out, and Why It Matters.
Background: Brazil Focus Survey Shows Weaker Growth, Sticky Inflation.
This article was produced by The Rio Times’ automated newsroom system. How we use AI · Report an error
In depth
Read More from The Rio Times