White Lilac Kenosha Music: A Global Evening with Nazario Chickpeazio

An evening of rare, cross-cultural music comes to Kenosha this Friday when Nazario Chickpeazio & Friends take the stage at The White Lilac for an intimate performance unlike most anything the city has seen. The White Lilac Kenosha music event is set for Friday, July 25, from 7 to 9 p.m., with seating described as limited inside the venue’s cozy listening room.

The ensemble brings together an exceptional range of instruments from across centuries and cultures. The lineup includes the oud, lavta, flute, sitar, Baroque guitar, and Afghan rabab — a combination that spans the Middle East, South Asia, the Mediterranean, and the European Baroque tradition.

The variety isn’t simply for show. Each instrument carries its own tonal character, and the interplay between plucked strings, bowed necks, and breath-driven melody creates textures that shift and surprise throughout a performance. Hearing this collection in a small room, rather than a large concert hall, puts the audience close enough to feel every nuance.

Madness & Moore Entertainment, which is presenting the event, describes the evening as the kind of performance best experienced up close, where every plucked string and breath of sound fills the room.

Nazario Chickpeazio leads the ensemble as its namesake performer. The “Friends” in the billing points to a collaborative, ensemble-driven format rather than a solo showcase — a structure well suited to music that draws from so many distinct traditions.

The White Lilac is located on 6th Avenue in Kenosha. The venue operates as a listening room, a format that prioritizes attentive, quiet engagement with live music over the background-noise environment of a bar or larger venue. Seating is limited, and the organizers have indicated that tickets should be reserved in advance at WhiteLilacKenosha.com.

The setting suits the material. Music rooted in oral and regional traditions — the kind passed between players rather than published in standard notation — benefits from the focused attention a listening room provides. Instruments like the rabab and the lavta are not heard often in Kenosha, and the combination of all six in a single evening is genuinely uncommon.

The performance runs two hours, from 7 to 9 p.m. Attendees can expect an evening that moves between moods and modes, reflecting the breadth of the ensemble’s instruments. The oud and lavta, both fretless plucked instruments with roots in the Arab world and Ottoman Turkey respectively, pair in unexpected ways with the South Asian sitar. The Baroque guitar, tuned and voiced differently from a modern classical guitar, adds a European counterpoint. The Afghan rabab — a short-necked lute central to Afghan classical and folk music — rounds out an ensemble that, on paper, shouldn’t necessarily cohere but, in skilled hands, often does.

The organizers note that this is the kind of music a listener may never encounter quite this way again, and that framing seems honest rather than hyperbolic. Opportunities to hear a live rabab alongside a sitar and a Baroque guitar in an intimate Kenosha setting are not common.

Seating at The White Lilac is limited. Anyone interested in attending the July 25 performance by Nazario Chickpeazio & Friends is encouraged to reserve tickets in advance through WhiteLilacKenosha.com. The event is presented by Madness & Moore Entertainment.

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