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Brazilian brothers Sérgio and Odair Assad will perform with Paquito D'Rivera on Jan. 25 at R

When it comes to performing on stage, Sérgio Assad is practically joined at the hip with his younger brother Odair. The world-renowned guitar duo from Brazil has performed with Yo-Yo Ma for crowds of up to 30,000, but without his brother at his side, Sérgio has found it difficult to play even for a small group of friends.

“We’ve gotten used to practicing separately,” he said. “But it’s true that it’s weird to play alone. For so many years, I haven’t experienced going on stage by myself, and I’ve found myself in strange situations where I go to parties with friends and they ask me to play, and my brother’s not around. I don’t know what to do. It’s like there’s something missing.”

The Assad brothers, who are performing with Cuban jazz clarinetist and saxophonist Paquito D’Rivera on Jan. 25 at Royce Hall, have been playing together for 40 years, since they first learned to play guitar together as children. Sérgio began at age 12, and Odair began at age 8 to learn the Brazilian music form choro in Sao Paolo. So when the brothers were encouraged to play as a duo by their teacher, Monina Tavora, a disciple of classical-guitar legend Andres Segovia, it was something to which they were already accustomed.

“We like to sound as one instrument,” Sérgio said. “That has been our training since the beginning. It’s not one instrument playing the lead role and one providing the accompaniment. It’s really a combination of voice, like playing the piano.”

The duo’s success in the United States was catapulted in the last decade by a number of collaborations with musicians of the “classical crossover” movement who were interested in the Brazilian music the brothers had to offer. Among the classical artists the Assad brothers have worked with are American soprano Dawn Upshaw, Latvian violinist Gidon Kremer and Italian violinist Nadja Salerno-Sonnenberg.

It is safe to say, however, that their collaborations with Ma on the albums “Soul of the Tango” and “Obrigado Brazil” have brought them the most exposure. The Assad brothers were first asked to play on Ma’s 1997 album “Soul of the Tango,” which featured the music of Argentinean tango composer Astor Piazzolla, because the album’s producer knew that the brothers were close friends and collaborators of Piazzolla. The album went on to win a Grammy in 1998.

Afterward, the brothers were invited again, this time by Ma himself, to collaborate on “Obrigado Brazil,” which was released in 2003 and eventually led to a world tour that included Taipei, where the brothers performed for 30,000 people, the largest crowd of their career. A performance in New York during the tour was recorded and released as a live CD and DVD.

In addition to the Grammy for “Obrigado Brazil,” the brothers also won a Latin Grammy in 2002 for their album “Sérgio and Odair Assad Play Piazzolla.” But all these recent accolades have a much smaller personal effect on the brothers than one might expect.

“It has an effect on one’s career if you win a major prize like that one,” Sérgio said indifferently. “It’s one of the things that helps (because) people can talk about it.”

What remains more important to the Assads is the music itself and family.

Music is the Assad family legacy and passion. Besides Sérgio and Odair, almost everybody else in their family is a musician. In fact, it was their father Jorge, a mandolin player, who originally encouraged his sons to pick up guitar so they could accompany him. Little did he know he would one day embark on tour with them.

Last year, the Assad family tour of the United States included the duo’s father, mother Angelina, who sings, sister Badi, who sings and plays guitar and percussion, daughters Clarice, who plays piano, bass guitar and vocals, and Camile, who sings, and son Rodrigo, who plays guitar and sings.

Badi is a well-known solo recording artist in Brazil, while Sérgio’s daughter Clarice is a composer. A documentary of the family has been featured on Brazilian television.

The secret to the brothers’ success as one of the world’s greatest guitar duos may just be their kinship.

“We are very good friends, my brother and I,” Sérgio said. “But I don’t think it’s because of music. I think it’s because we’re brothers. It has nothing to do with music. I mean, good music helps, but I think we would be good friends even if the music was not there.”