Close
Rio Carnival Masterclass 2027
The only course of its kind in English. Four live Tuesday evenings, all twelve Special Group samba schools, and the Brazilian history, music and dance behind every theme. Taught by someone who has been in the bateria since 2002.
Tier 1 price. It rises to €105 on Friday 11 September, or sooner if the ten places go.
If after the first session it is not what you expected, tell me and I will refund you.
“This is not just a discussion of the samba school topics, but a deep dive into Brazilian culture. I loved it.” Anastasia · Russia
Every February, twelve of the most extraordinary artistic productions in the world compete on a runway in Rio de Janeiro.
Each one is a year of work. A researched theme, argued through floats and costumes. A warehouse where those floats have been built since the previous autumn. A samba the whole community has learned to sing. A percussion section three hundred strong.
Then it goes past in eighty minutes, and almost none of it is explained in English.
This course explains it. Not how to play samba. How to read a parade.
You do not need to play an instrument and you do not need to speak Portuguese. It is as much for dancers as it is for drummers.
It is for you if:
If what you want is technique, whether in drumming or in dance, this is the wrong course, and for drumming the Samba School Drumming Course is the right one.
The theme the school is parading: where it comes from and what it is arguing. These are researched works, usually about Brazilian history or Afro-Brazilian tradition, and they reward being understood.
How that theme becomes floats, costumes and alas, and how the whole thing is judged as a competition. That includes the parts that are danced: the comissão de frente that opens the school and argues the theme in movement, the mestre-sala and porta-bandeira, the passistas, the baianas, and what the judges are actually looking for in each of them.
What that school's percussion section is known for, and what to listen for when it passes. And because the bateria sets the tempo the whole school moves to, this is also where you hear why one school is danced differently from another.
This is the part people do not expect. Every enredo reaches into Brazilian history, music or tradition, so the themes are the way in rather than the destination. A parade about Rita Lee becomes an hour on Brazilian rock and who she was. One about Bembé do Mercado becomes candomblé and Afro-Brazilian resistance. One about the Manguebeat becomes Recife in the 1990s. You come for the parade and you leave understanding a great deal more of Brazil.
Then in February, after the results are announced, we meet again to go through what actually happened: the scores, the judges' decisions, what worked and what surprised us.
| Tuesday 20 October 18:30 GMT | União de Maricá · Beija-Flor de Nilópolis · Paraíso do Tuiuti |
| Tuesday 27 October 18:30 GMT | Unidos de Vila Isabel · Mocidade Independente · Unidos da Tijuca |
| Tuesday 3 November 18:30 GMT | Acadêmicos do Salgueiro · Imperatriz Leopoldinense · Portela |
| Tuesday 10 November 18:30 GMT | Viradouro · Grande Rio · Estação Primeira de Mangueira |
| February 2027 after the results | The post-Carnival session, live. New for 2027. |
| Any time at your own pace | The foundational lesson, the 100-page ebook and the playlists |
Cannot make a Tuesday? Every session is recorded and you keep access. Several people each year watch the whole course on catch-up.
All sessions start at 18:30 GMT, which does not shift with daylight saving. To find your local time, search “18:30 GMT in [your city]”. Clocks change in some countries during the course period, so always check against GMT.
The ebook alone sells for €35. Which puts the course itself at €60, for nine hours of live teaching spread across four months.
That is the most common thing people say to me before they enrol, and it is why every participant gets a pre-recorded lesson to watch before the live sessions begin.
It covers the parts nobody explains: how a samba school is organised, what the quadra and the barracão are, the full production cycle from choosing a theme to the final rehearsal, what a carnavalesco actually does, the logistics of parade day, every ala and the job it does, and how the judging system works.
Watch it at your own pace, in your own time. You will arrive at session one already understanding the machine.
It is consistently the part of the course people mention afterwards.
Now in its third year. 45 people have taken it so far, from Europe, North America and beyond.
“This was my second year attending the course, and I continue to be impressed by Gabriel's incredible depth and breadth of Samba knowledge. Thanks to everything I've learned, I feel well-prepared to watch and truly understand Rio Carnaval. I deeply appreciate the detailed, behind-the-scenes insights he shares. There's so much more to the history and culture of Samba than I ever realized, and this course brought it all to life.”
Barbara · United States · second-year student“I loved every session. This was a very interesting set of lessons where the Rio carnival in general and all the differences between the famous samba schools were explained in detail and with great knowledge. This is a very nice opportunity to take a deep dive into every aspect of the Rio carnival. I would really recommend this course to every Samba Batucada lover.”
Gijs · Netherlands“This is not just a discussion of the samba school topics, but a deep dive into Brazilian culture. I loved it!”
Anastasia · Russia“I love all the details you always put in. And with the themes comes together information about other styles of music, history, culture. Through the theme we can learn a lot about Brazil and Brazilians.”
Biba · SlovakiaI am a percussionist, researcher and educator from Rio de Janeiro, and I have been inside this for twenty-five years.
I joined Monobloco in 2000 and still perform with them. I have played in samba school baterias since 2002, in Rocinha for over a decade and in Vila Isabel since 2019, on repique. From 2005 to 2019 I was mestre de bateria for Volta Alice, a bloco that grew to tens of thousands of people. In 2016 I entered a samba of my own into Mangueira's competition.
I have written three books on samba school baterias, and I have taught at the University of Oxford, the Royal College of Music, the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and the Conservatorium van Amsterdam.
This Masterclass is the most complete account of the samba school parades I put together each year, and the only one of its kind in English.
Everyone gets exactly the same course. The only thing that changes is when you decide.
| Tier | Price | Available until |
|---|---|---|
| Tier 1 On sale now | €95 | Thursday 10 September, or when the tenth place goes |
| Tier 2 | €105 | Thursday 8 October |
| Tier 3 | €120 | Monday 19 October, when enrolment closes |
| Group of four or more | €90 each | Thursday 8 October |
Tier 1 is ten places at €95 and it closes on whichever comes first, the date or the tenth place. Enrolment closes altogether on Monday 19 October, the day before the first session.
Payment is handled securely by Stripe. You will receive access details by email straight away. If after the first session it is not what you expected, tell me and I will refund you.
Four places or more, €90 each.
If you play in a batucada, dance in a samba or Brazilian dance group, or run a school, this works better together. You spend four Tuesday evenings building a shared reference, and then you watch February with the same eyes and argue about the results properly. Drummers and dancers in the same room is the best version of it, because you spend the whole of February arguing from different sides.
Last year a single booking of four places accounted for a quarter of the entire cohort.
Group bookings close on Thursday 8 October, so that everyone has their access before we start. Groups take a while to agree on things, so it is worth raising at a rehearsal well before then.
Add more places at checkout. Questions first? Email mail@sambabeats.com.br.
Four Tuesday evenings, twelve samba schools, everything explained in English, and a live session in February to go through what happened.
Enrol now, €95Tier 1 closes on Thursday 10 September, or when the tenth place goes.
If after the first session it is not what you expected, tell me and I will refund you.
Email mail@sambabeats.com.br or send a WhatsApp message and I will answer personally. If you would rather talk it through, I am happy to set up a short call.
Take the free ebooks instead. You will also get the monthly Samba Beats newsletter, which follows the twelve schools all the way to February.
Get the free ebooks