From a distance, the members of Ethos Percussion Group look like a nerdy all-guy garage band with an obsessive collection of drums. Dressed in black pants and casual shirts, the four players spread across the stage Saturday at the Maine Center for the Arts and situated themselves at various stations in a hush of expectation from an audience of fewer than 500.

It was not long into John La Barbera’s “Marim ba ba’ Suite,” however, that Ethos laid out its heady approach to sound, texture and rhythm. This piece was based in Brazilian traditional folk dances and had an expressive, uplifting quality. Another composition, “Drumming Part I” by Steve Reich, used four sets of small drums to exploit the melodic potential of the instruments. And Peter Garland’s “Apple Blossom,” a delicate, minimalist work for one marimba and four players, explored a single 13-note chord.

Impossible, really, to picture garage boys after listening to these meticulous musical complexities. The truth is that Michael Sgouros, Eric Phinney, Trey Files and Yousif Sheronick carry both the academy and the cultures of the world in their drums, cymbals, gongs, triangles, tambourines, bells, bongos and congas. They come from Juilliard, Manhattan School of Music and Yale. But they’ve looked to Africa, Indonesia, Brazil, India, the Middle East, Ireland, western rock, jazz, classical music and farther for their inspiration.

The result is a precise approach to percussion that is robust, intellectual and global. It can also be esoteric, challenging listeners to grapple with music that is often repetitious and emphasizes sounds typically mixed with other instruments. The unaccustomed ear has to adjust, to calm itself to absorb the delicacies and braininess of this type of music.

The popular highlight of the concert, which lasted more than two hours, was the world premiere of “See/change,” written by Files as an on-the-road score that Ethos can play at various venues with students or professionals — the community of the percussion world, as he called it.

Turns out that the University of Maine symphonic band players were themselves on the road when Ethos was in town. But Stuart Marrs, UM professor of music and professional percussionist, collected three local colleagues – Dave Halvorson, Ted Nokes and Aaron Emery – to participate in a quirky, witty work that highlighted more than 20 percussion instruments.

The second half of the concert featured Indian musicians Pandit Samir Chatterjee on tabla and Pandit Ramesh Misra on the stringed sarengi. Sitting on the floor cross-legged, the two masters played a selection of ragas and talas, classical music from the northern section of India, sometimes with accompanying percussive chatter. It was a rare and compelling encounter with two esteemed ambassadors of Indian music in America. They were joined finally by Ethos for “Rite Rhythm,” Chatterjee’s compilation of world rhythms filtered through Indian compositions.