Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams return to Central New York, in a Homer church turned concert hall

The duo's first Syracuse-area show since 2018 is Saturday, Jan. 30 at the Center for the Arts of Homer.

There's a particular kind of quiet that settles over a converted church when two voices and a guitar fill it. That's the setting on Saturday, Jan. 30, 2027, when Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams play the Center for the Arts of Homer. The show starts at 8 p.m., tickets run $10.50–$35 through Tixr, and the date was announced Oct. 13.

It's the duo's first show in the Syracuse area since Nov. 10, 2018, at Auburn Public Theater — more than eight years between visits.

A lot of their recorded story has happened in that gap. When they last came through, Campbell and Williams had two albums out as a duo: a self-titled debut in 2015 and *Contraband Love* in 2017. Since then they've added *Live at Levon's* in 2023 and *All This Time*, their fourth album, released in April 2024 on Royal Potato Family. Nothing newer has been announced, so expect a set drawn from all four.

Two voices and a guitar, in a room that used to hold a congregation.

That live record's title points at where the partnership was built. Their publicist's materials describe the debut as honed at Levon Helm's Midnight Ramble, the famous barn sessions in Woodstock, and the music they play — country, folk and rock in roughly equal parts, often in close harmony — comes out of that tradition of musicians playing for each other in a room. It's music that rewards listening closely, which is exactly what Homer's hall is built for.

The Center for the Arts of Homer sits at 72 S. Main St., in what was the First Baptist Church of Homer, a building well over a century old. After the congregation left, neighbors worked to turn it into an arts and music venue, and its main hall, the Whiting Theater, now seats about 400. Shows here feel less like a night at a club and more like a community gathering that happens to have a great band on stage.

Practical notes: it's late January in Cortland County, so check the forecast before you drive down I-81 from Syracuse — it's about a 30-minute trip in good weather. The low end of the ticket range is about as friendly as a concert gets these days, which makes this an easy one to bring someone to on a whim.

Eight years is a long time to wait for a duo like this. A Saturday night in an old church on Main Street, in the dead of winter, is a fine way to end the wait.

Sources: Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams – Tixr / Center for the Arts of Homer (tixr.com); Larry Campbell & Teresa Williams unveil new studio album 'All This Time' – Grateful Web (gratefulweb.com); Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams debut, honed at Levon Helm's Midnight Ramble – Shore Fire Media (shorefire.com); Larry Campbell and Teresa Williams press page – Shore Fire Media (shorefire.com); Center for the Arts of Homer (center4art.org); From Church Services to Concert Shows – Experience Cortland (experiencecortland.com); Center for the Arts of Homer – Experience Cortland (experiencecortland.com); 2024 Cortland Travel Guide, p. 29 (experiencecortland.com); Hot Times in Homer: Center for the Arts continues to bloom – Syracuse New Times (syracusenewtimes.com)