Turkish-Australian soprano Ayşe Göknur Shanal is returning to Canberra on Sunday with a passion project, a concert of all-Cuban music simply titled, Cuba.

Describing the music as “a world of rhythm, soul and innovation”, she says Cuban music is much more than salsa, and has been shaped by figures such as Miguel Matamoros, Ernesto Lecuona, and guitarist, singer and composer Compay Segundo.

Brisbane-born Shanal, whose achievements include having won the Dame Joan Sutherland Award and the Opera Foundation’s Metropolitan Opera Award, is a familiar face in the ACT and her versatility is considerable, surprising many when she popped up in one of Toby Cole’s recent opera salons singing Handel.

She’ll be joined by Karella Mitchell on cello, Adelaide percussion virtuoso Jess Ciampa and Cheryl Oxley on piano, and the venture is supported by Cuban ambassador Tanieris Dieguez La O, who joined Shanal in April at Sydney Opera House’s Utzon Room in a similar concert to sing an impromptu duet.

The Wesley concert will include classics such as La Bella Cubana by José White Lafitte as an instrumental arranged for piano and cello, and songs by Segundo and Matamoros and a rousing rendition of Guantanamera, the unofficial Cuban anthem.

Most significant to Shanal, there’ll be music by Cuban composer and pianist, Ernesto Lecuona y Casado, whose 600 compositions include the famous numbers, La Comparsa, and La Malaguena.

Although many of the pieces that they’ll be performing have a classic sensibility, she believes they need “a lot of spontaneity and improvisation.”

“It is possible,” she asserts, “to have a classical sensibility and be groovy at the same time.”

There’s a personal note to this project. While studying and living in International House in Brisbane, her friends from Venezuela and Cuba would invite her to their weekend parties.

“I was doing my first year at Queensland Conservatorium but on the side I would spend the weekend at the salsa club when I was just 18 years old,” she says.

Going back even further, her love of Cuban music was cemented at age five or six when her cellist mum used to sing Guantanamera to her.

She later became familiar with the Buena Vista Social Club and Afrobeat, then she was asked to curate Argentine music concerts for several years, and she’s performed that style in Canberra, although it was quite different.

“Without the rhythm and groove, you can’t have Cuban music,” she says.

Cuba, Wesley Music Centre, Forrest, June 15.