Dar Williams will perform at Johnson Hall Performing Arts Center on Water Street in Gardiner on Saturday at 7:30 p.m. Doors open at 7 p.m. All seats are $42.

Williams is performing in support of her ninth studio record, Emerald, which takes a look at the confluence between her experiences and broader contemporary culture — and what it means to be a songwriter at this moment in history.

In the past few years, Williams has been involved in a wide range of different efforts and projects: teaching a course titled “Music Movements in a Capitalist Democracy” at her alma mater, Wesleyan University; working with children at several summer camps; leading songwriting workshops; getting involved with the workings of her village; and writing a book about the ways she’s seen towns becoming more independent and prosperous over her twenty years of touring. In addition, in the face of dramatic transformations in the music industry, she is releasing Emerald on her own after choosing to part ways with Razor & Tie, her label for almost 20 years.

“I’m now experiencing the fruits of the alternative culture I was part of in the ‘90s,” she said. “I think I’ve made choices about how I lived my life, outside of the world that was going to fit me among the mainstream norms, and I chose to stay with my friends, to stay with my culture.”

Williams continued: “That turns out to have been the sturdiest structure I could have built for myself. And that’s in my songs, it’s in my teaching. I’m a believer in what can happen when we make music together.

Tickets are available at Johnson Hall’s Box Office until to 3 p.m. Friday, or at (207) 582-7144, or by visiting www.johnsonhall.org