Dar Williams books two January nights at the Birchmere

The folk songwriter closes out her Hummingbird Highway run with Alexandria shows on Jan. 22 and 23, 2027 — Friday tickets are $63.45.

There is a particular hush that falls over the Birchmere when a songwriter steps to the mic — the clink of forks in the long room fading out before the first verse. Dar Williams will get that hush twice this winter.

The folk singer-songwriter plays the Birchmere in Alexandria on Friday, Jan. 22, 2027, at 7:30 p.m., a date announced Oct. 14. The Birchmere's own calendar also lists a second night on Saturday, Jan. 23, same 7:30 p.m. start. Friday tickets are $63.45 through Ticketmaster. The room holds about 500, so two nights is still an intimate total — if you have a preferred night, there is no reason to wait for the new year to pick it.

The shows arrive at the end of a long stretch on the road. Williams released her 13th album, *Hummingbird Highway*, on Sept. 12, 2025, through Righteous Babe Records, and spent 2026 on what she billed as the Hummingbird Highway World Tour. It opened in New Jersey in February, crossed the country in the spring with stops from Washington and Oregon to Colorado, Maine and New York, played the River Roads Festival outside Philadelphia in June, and headed overseas this fall for dates in Ireland, England, the Netherlands and France.

That itinerary is more or less the subject of the record. Her own description of the album has Williams celebrating the colors she catches from her vantage as a touring musician — songs about what goes by the window between one town and the next. By January, she will have had the better part of a year and a couple of continents to live inside those songs, and Northern Virginia gets them after all that mileage rather than before it.

A record about what you notice on the road, played in a room built for noticing.

The room matters here. The Birchmere has been calling itself America's legendary music hall since 1966, and the reason it has held on to that line is the way it runs a night: tables, a meal if you want one, and an audience that came to listen rather than to be seen. For a songwriter whose latest album is about paying attention, a room where people actually pay attention is the right booking. It is also a familiar one — Williams' site lists Birchmere stops on earlier tours, and this is a stage she keeps coming back to.

A few practical notes. The Friday show is the one in our listings, and the Saturday date sits right next to it on the venue's calendar; check there for the opener on each night, door times and how seating works before you buy. Tickets for both run through Ticketmaster, which the Birchmere links from each event page.

January in Alexandria is not anybody's favorite month. A couple of hours at a table on Mount Vernon Avenue with Dar Williams and a room full of people who came to hear every word is about as good an answer to it as the calendar offers.

Sources: The Birchmere — Dar Williams event page (birchmere.com); Ticketmaster — Dar Williams at Birchmere, Jan 22, 2027 (ticketmaster.evyy.net); Dar Williams — Release Day: Hummingbird Highway (darwilliams.com); Dar Williams — Announcing the Hummingbird Highway World Tour 2026 (darwilliams.com); Dar Williams — River Roads 2026 (darwilliams.com); The Birchmere Music Hall (birchmere.com)