Peninsula Pulse
I
recently discovered a word for an odd emotion I have always felt in crowds: sonder. Sonder is the feeling you get when you realize everyone else is living a life that’s as full, real and complex as your own. This is something we all know logically (I hope), but sonder is when it really hits you – when you look into a crowd and see hundreds of individuals, each with their own experiences, beliefs, hopes and fears, the vast majority of which you’ll never know about. My sonder is never stronger than when I’m at a concert. I always find myself wondering what particular
june 13-20/2025
sets of circumstances brought everyone there, then realizing there are as many reasons for being at a concert as there are people in the crowd. Some come because they love live music in general; others, because they love this band or genre in particular; others, because that’s just what they do when they’re with their family in Door County. Some know every lyric to every song; others, just a few; and at least a handful are barely paying attention to the music, distracted by other things going on in their lives. And yet, regardless of when, why or how everyone showed up, we’re all listening to the same songs, maybe singing the same lyrics or swaying to the same beat. It’s a cliché at this point to gush about how music brings us together, but it’s a cliché for a reason. There’s something uniquely unifying about a good concert –
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especially when you realize, sonderously, that the music isn’t drawing a crowd, but a group of people, each one experiencing a slightly different show. So here’s to another summer of music, and another Summer Music Preview to guide you through it. As always, you’ll find in these pages a music schedule that goes through the end of July (an August music preview published later in the season will cover the rest of the dates). You’ll also find performance highlights, venue details, weekly music offerings, festival information and the scoop on the county’s resident classical-music groups. Ready for your next summer show? We are, too. Sam Watson Summer Music Preview editor