BBC World Television is featuring Grey Fox Bluegrass Festival in the first episode of it’s series, Destination Music. Each week the series highlights the music of a different country. Week one is America and bluegrass music is the focus!

Destination Music travels to Ancramdale, America, this week to be initiated into the world of bluegrass.” Set in the mountains of upstate New York, Greyfox Bluegrass Festival has been a firm fixture on the bluegrass music circuit for the last 29 years.??? Greyfox features some of the top bluegrass artists in America who mix blues, soul, country and even gospel to produce a truly distinctive sound.??? Sam Bush discusses the need to push the boundaries of the bluegrass sound and talented quintet Psychograss talk us through their jazz-like approach to performance.

It airs Friday Jan 6 at 3:30 PM EST and is replayed Jan 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 at various times.

I spoke with Mary Burdette via email and asked her about the taping of the show at the festival in 2005. Here’s what she had to say.

How was Grey Fox chosen as the location for the first episode of this series?

Truthfully, it was a bit of serendipity. They knew they wanted to come to the states in mid July, so they checked around for great music at that time of year. I’m not sure what the other selections could have been, but we’re VERY happy they chose Grey Fox, needless to say. I’m really not sure how they learned of Grey Fox, either! Good question! But when we got the tip that they were interested, the wheels got rolling to make it happen.

The film crew loved the festival and decided to kick off the whole series with our event, which is very nice.

While they were there, which was the whole weekend, the film crew was very visible, but blended in perfectly without ever being in the way. Extremely sensitive to the needs of the festival staff and the artists, etc. The head of the film crew was John Pagan (they were all from Great Britain). A long lost friend of his happened to be in the audience, knew he worked for the BBC, and decided to see if John was on this shoot…and there he was! They had a great time reminiscing.

I understand the Rothvoss Farm is up for sale. Where will the festival be held this year, in 2006?

Thankfully, we are able to have the 2006 festival on the Rothvoss Farm. After that, we don’t know. If the farm sells, then we’ll probably have to move. There is a grass roots movement to preserve the farm as a land trust. I don’t have more information about how that is going.

We are entertaining the idea of other sites, preferably in the same general location. We would like around 200 acres to make the camping less crowded and parking closer to the stages. But for now, we’re very happy to be at the Rothvoss Farm this year.

Full Festival tickets for this year’s event are currently available as an early bird special for only $125. More information, including purchasing info, can be found at the Grey Fox online ticket office.