Lyndsey Herman, Campus Carrier Staff Reporter
The eighth annual World Music Festival was well received by students this Saturday.
The festival was an all-day event, lasting from 12:30 p.m.- 10:00 p.m. on the Memorial Library lawn. Nine local bands were selected to perform a variety of music.
There was a mix of community members and Berry students and faculty. The environment was relaxed; people sat in lawn chairs and picnic blankets, some were dancing, others hula hooping.
And just in case the festival-goers got hungry throughout the day, the Unitarian Universalists of Berry were holding a bake sale.
Jeffrey Lidke, associate professor of religion, organized the event for the eighth year in a row.
“My favorite thing about the festival is the experience of community that comes together to celebrate music, spring and how fortunate we are to have this Berry community,” Lidke said.
The bands that played were SaddleMountain Bluegrass Boys, Kirtan Bandits, Ruth Demeter, Zuther Enloe, Mirabai, Blue Spirit Wheel with Wynne Paris, Flying Mystics, Ogya and Miwase. They performed various genres, ranging from bluegrass, rock, jazz, reggae, funk and even Middle Eastern and Afro-Indian-Cuban world dance music.
Junior Gregg Starcevic said it was culturally educating and enriching.
“I love the music, it’s awesome,” Starevic said. “There’s a great variety, it’s well performed and has good sound.”
Lidke said world music is his favorite genre of music.
“Both original music of any tradition and things inspired by jazz [are my favorites],” Lidke said.
The first World Music Festival was a benefit concert for the victims of the tsunami that hit many Asian countries in 2004. In following years the music festival has occurred out of tradition.
Several on-campus groups helped to sponsor the event, including Religion in Student Experience (RISE), KCAB, Berry Muslim Heritage Group, Buddhist Studies Group and the Unitarian Universalists of Berry.
Throughout the day, people came and went, but there was a steady number of around 50 present at all times.