The music of the Balkans is starting to grow on Alberto Avezuela.

He grew up in Puerto Rico, and now he’s a graduate student at Kansas University. He sings in the university’s World Music Choir, a group devoted to learning about music and cultures from a variety of countries.

This semester, the focus is on the Balkans.

“I like the change from singing in other choirs that just sing classical music,” Avezuela says.

In its fourth semester, the World Music Choir is offering a new outlet for students wanting to break out of the traditional university choral mold.

The 22-member choir will gain more prominence Wednesday night, when it performs with established and renowned Chilean band Inti-Illimani. The concert starts at 8 p.m. at Swarthout Recital Hall in KU’s Murphy Hall.

John Paul Johnson, KU’s director of choral activities, started the group in 2005. The director is Mirna Cabrera, a graduate student in the choral department.

Cabrera says understanding other cultures will be critical for students in the increasingly global society, and music is a good starting place to do that.

“One has to be interested on a personal level in other cultures,” she says. “Being interested in other cultures is almost a requirement.”

The choir members themselves are representative of the “world music” moniker. About half the members are international students, and Cabrera says that comes in handy for learning correct pronunciations.

Early on, the choir sang music from around the world each semester. Now, it focuses its efforts more on a particular region each semester, and students do research on the music and the culture in that region.

“I think a person who joins the choir, whether they’re aware of it or not, has to be very open-minded,” Cabrera says. “They’ll be exposed to music most of us don’t understand initially. That’s the greatest common denominator for joining this group – they have to be flexible and open-minded.”

Finding music has been a challenge, Cabrera says. Often, traditional music from a particular region isn’t written down, and when it is, it’s not a full choral arrangement.

That makes the guest musicians from other countries who work with the choir important to the learning process.

“It’s different from classical music choirs,” she says. “When we have guest musicians in, one has to learn from them – even annotated music has its faults in conveying a certain style. A lot of times, these are just skeleton choral arrangements. The style is just different. It goes beyond the notes.”

Megan Gerwick, a freshman from Derby who has sung in the choir for two semesters, says she’s excited to perform with Inti-Illimani, though learning to sing in Spanish has been a challenge.

“Usually in choir, you sing in English, Latin, German or French,” Gerwick says. “You don’t get to experience this music as often.”