One shudders to think of the consequences if the G String Orchestra had been just another drunken NOLA rock band. (Imagine yourself trying to convince your out-of-town friends there’s no burlesque involved.)

As it turns out, there’s no joke here, just a quartet of serious musicians playing old-school dance music. Really old school. European old. The Orchestra is named after their (mostly) stringed instruments, which they use to resuscitate what they quite correctly refer to as their “Pan-Balkan” material.

The native music of southeastern Europe, in other words—klezmer, yes, but also gypsy folk of all kinds, including Serbian, Moldovan, Hungarian and even Parisian variations.

It’s a more diverse collection than you might imagine, but keeping the arrangements down to a base of accordion, guitar, stand-up bass and violin ties them all together nicely into one big pancultural playlist. (The Stringers hail from New Orleans as well as Alaska, so their live shows may feature as many as 10 musicians, depending on who’s available.)

This is music that doesn’t attempt to divorce sadness from joy, as befits historically nomadic peoples laboring for centuries under oppression of one kind or another. Violinist Ian “Squeaky” Cook takes on the lion’s share of the pathos, as you’d imagine, but the best song here, the Serbian kolo “Ajde Jano,” allows enough space for everyone to tug on the heartstrings a little.

And if those aforementioned friends are scared off by the exotica of it all, just point out the nearly blue notes of “Holdfeny Serenade” or the way the Romanian standard “Joc Batuta” keeps threatening to evolve into a Cajun two-step.

Now that’s pan-culturalism.