Striking voice in spare setting

Brazil has one of the richest, most diverse musical cultures in the world. Yet, for many listeners, that diversity reaches only from the lyricism of bossa nova to the dynamic drumming and feathered dancing of carnival. On Friday night at the Cerritos Center, singer Monica Salmaso offered a different perspective, surveying a rich array of Brazilian musical styles with extraordinary musicality and subtlety.

Just barely into her 30s, the Sao Paulo singer is already high on the list of her country’s vocal artists. Her velvet-toned sound, focused intonation and understated but tenaciously lively rhythms are the hallmarks of a gifted, natural performer. Salmaso could easily have used those gifts in a typically high-voltage Brazilian setting. But she chose, instead, to work with only a trio for accompaniment -- pianist Benjamin Taubkin, clarinet and saxophone player Nailor “Proveta” Azevedo and percussionist Guello, framing her songs in spare, musically insightful settings.

In some cases, her Satie-like, minimalist approach, superbly balancing sounds and silences, consisted of nothing more than her crystal-clear voice accompanied by her own rhythms, played on a matchbox.

Other songs blended her voice with Azevedo’s darting clarinet lines, while still others displayed sweetly soulful vocal lines interspersed with startlingly dissonant piano passages from Taubkin.

Salmaso’s exquisite renderings included songs by, among many others -- Nelson Cavaquinho, Dorival Caymmi and Ary Barroso -- enhanced by her lucid explanations of the significance of each composer. Her program, part art song recital, part music seminar, part spellbinding singing, was an irresistible display of Brazilian music at its best.

Opening the bill, Majorcan singer Maria del Mar Bonet offered an entrancing program of Mediterranean songs, embracing numbers from Greece, Italy, Majorca, Spain and beyond.