Viv & Riley — Vivian Leva, right, and Riley Calcagno — will take the stage at the Foundry Theater on Saturday, Oct. 10, bringing a blend of old-time and indie folk sounds to the village. (Submitted photo)
Viv & Riley stretch out, stay rooted
- Published: October 8, 2026
Viv & Riley will bring a little old-time music, a little indie folk and some songs that wander comfortably between to the Foundry Theater at 7 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 10.
The Durham, North Carolina-based duo — Vivian Leva and Riley Calcagno — grew up in traditional music communities on opposite sides of the country — Leva in Lexington, Virginia, and Calcagno in Seattle. The duo’s traditional roots run through their harmonies and their work with the stringband The Onlies, and as they told the News last week, they form the bedrock of how the two think about making music, even as their sound stretches into other territory.
Leva was learning old songs from her parents while writing pop songs as a middle schooler; after she and Calcagno met in 2018 and subsequently started playing together, she said she’d found someone whose desire to look back to old-time music and look ahead at how its essential parts could be transmogrified mirrored her own.
“It’s cool to make music with somebody who’s simultaneously very rooted in traditional music, but then really down to explore new music as well,” she said.
Calcagno said he’d heard Leva’s parents’ music before meeting her, and recognized something familiar when he first heard her sing: “this clear, expressive voice,” singing songs he knew from his own upbringing.
“So, yeah, it was a very profound experience, for sure,” he said.
Outside of the sonic elements that old-time music brings with it, Leva said she thinks the most vital is the spirit of community in which all manner of traditional music is often made: “It’s playing with other people,” she said.
They pointed to bluegrass and old-time legend Alice Gerrard, a former neighbor of theirs, from whom they’ve drawn inspiration: “I feel like she was a great presence in our life, and she’s an example of someone who has had a really storied life in old-time and bluegrass music, but also is always thinking about her own creative pursuits,” Calcagno said. (Gerrard, an Antioch College alum, will play at the Foundry in November.)
And making music with others, the duo agreed, has its own purpose within traditional communities, even outside the demands of a professional music career. Learning music from others, braiding in your own idiosyncrasies, but acknowledging that it doesn’t belong just to you — that’s what old-time music is about, Leva said.
“It’s trying to do service to the music, rather than service to the individual, and valuing your community,” she said.
Viv & Riley’s 2023 album, “Imaginary People,” brought that ethos into practice: it was produced by Alex Bingham of Hiss Golden Messenger, and drew on the community they found after moving to Durham, with room for experimentation in both songwriting and sound.
The album is a noticeable departure from their old-time albums with The Onlies, and even from their 2021 duo project, an album released under their full names that administered a rich kick of classic country. “Imaginary People” comes with some hallmarks of Viv & Riley’s traditional roots, including strands of tight harmony woven throughout and the unmistakable earthiness of Leva’s warm vocals; there’s also the occasional fiddle.
But from the first spare surf-rock-esque guitar arpeggios on the album’s opener, “Kygers Hill,” the duo find and maintain a different vibe; a few songs down, “The General” revels in laid-back indie pop yearning, both in tune and lyrics, as Leva sings: “The way you smile ties me up in knots; just dig me a grave in your family plot.”
“I think it’s hardly influenced by old-time, except for the fact that it’s in our blood a little bit,” Leva said. “We were talking to people and sharing musical ideas and trying to take inspiration from other things we liked.”
She added: “I do think there’s something to be said for having people who play old-time music in a band in a foundational sense because, particularly rhythmically, it’s all about creating a groove with others that can apply across genres.”
Leva and Calcagno said the pandemic helped shape the songs, disrupting the places and relationships around which the two had been building their lives. Leva said she started writing the title track’s chorus in her childhood bedroom in Virginia, having come home after her college closed during the COVID-19 shutdown. She and Calcagno had been attending colleges in Oregon and Ohio, respectively.
“It was kind of a time when I feel like people really had to decide where they wanted to be, where they wanted to go and who they wanted to spend that time with,” she said. “It was just a hard time of being like, ‘Who’s moving where, and how are we going to deal with this?’ Kind of asking, ‘Who’s going to save me from this?’ that was born in that early moment.”
Over the lilt of a fiddle and a melody that could be as suited in indie pop as in any alt-country outfit, she sings: “There was a time I used to blame the distance between us/That given a way, you’d come running with a vision/Well here I am, just the same, wondering who I am today.”
There’s room on the album, too, for the silver linings borne of the unprecedented proximity lots of folks were herded into during shutdowns and quarantines — the sweetness of being home with loved ones for days, weeks, months. Calcagno pointed to the album’s second track, “Sauvie Island,” where Leva sings: “Dryer’s broke, but we’re still fine/hanging clothes out on the line/mix some honey with some wine/talk all night to pass the time.”
“There were sort of those moments of bliss and joy that we found amidst all the other weird, hard stuff, you know,” he said. “And I feel like life has never felt the same since, for anybody. It changed everybody’s trajectory, disrupted everything. We were coming of age, directly — that was our launch pad, that year. So it changed the whole path of everything, and I feel like there’s things I miss, and there’s also things I’m so grateful for that happened because of that time.”
The duo’s next project unfolded on tour with songwriter and musician Rachel Baiman, with long hours in the van spent listening to music and finding out where their tastes overlapped. Songs they loved became songs they wanted to learn together; that shared listening eventually became “Kissing Other Ppl,” a covers album released in 2025 that includes tracks originally written and performed by Waylon Payne, Wilco, Jo Dee Messina and Lennon Stella, among others.
The album came together pretty organically, Leva and Calcagno said, with all three musicians trying new things as they reimagined beloved existing works. Calcagno said the trio made the album with a “philosophy of play,” an approach that had helped shape “Imaginary People,” too. Making original music can feel serious, he said; both records gave them room to bring some of the lightness they find in old-time music into their work as songwriters.
“And also, it can be really rewarding to write songs, it feels really good, and sometimes it’s exactly what is needed,” Leva added. “But there’s so much amazing music and art that already exists in the world.”
That’s part of the pleasure of playing old-time music, too, she said: “carrying on music that you really love or that is beautiful to you,” even when you had no hand in creating it. With Baiman, the invitation was to follow that pleasure, learning songs together without the demand that they originate every part.
“Let’s just have fun and learn things that we like and learn them together,” Leva said.
Looking ahead, the duo is planning a new album for next year, likely in March, with its first single expected later this month. Saturday’s show may offer a few of those newer songs, they said, alongside material from “Imaginary People” and earlier records, with fiddle, banjo, two guitars and plenty of Viv & Riley’s hallmark harmonies.
Viv & Riley will perform in the Foundry Theater at Antioch College on Saturday, Oct. 10, at 7 p.m. Tickets are $25 for general admission and $5 for students; for more information, go to antiochcollege.edu
The Yellow Springs News encourages respectful discussion of this article.
You must login to post a comment.
Don't have a login? Register for a free YSNews.com account.
No comments yet for this article.