WOR OF Belgium returns to the Crystal Theatre stage on Saturday.

CRYSTAL FALLS — Crystal Theatre’s 12-event 2024 “Gem of a Season” concludes with a performance by WOR at 7 p.m. Saturday.

“Some patrons think we’ve saved the best for last,” said Wilma Kallies, Crystal Theatre’s board president. “When WOR was here in 2022, everyone had such a great time, they asked us to please bring them back. So we did!”

This band of five musicians from Belgium play on an eclectic range of instruments from violin, guitar, and baritone sax to accordion, baroque musette, and bagpipes. WOR — pronounced “were” — injects new energy into 18th-century melodies from the Flanders region of Belgium.

Recording for the first time in 2015, the group’s curiosity and passion is expressed in the comment, “if it sounded good back in the 1780s, why not today?” Their music shines an inventive spotlight, with a modern twist, on the melodies of these old manuscripts.

WOR has released three albums and has toured in Europe, Australia and Canada in addition to the US. In 2021, they were nominated for “Best live band” at the Flemish Folk Awards, and their album “About Towers” made it into the World Music Charts of Europe.

“About Towers” is built around Belgian manuscripts of carillon music. In the late Middle Ages, the carillon, a set of tuned bronze bells suspended in a large tower, functioned like a modern-day radio station playing the hits of the day. The group calls it “unusual music in a hip and catchy costume, always with respect for tradition, but brimming with artistic originality.”

Season flex-passes or advance tickets for WOR can be purchased online at thecrystaltheatre.org, by phoning 906-875-3208, or in person 9 a.m. to noon Monday through Friday at Stage Left.