Matheson Music Festival

The Ag Building and the parking lot

In February the parking lot outside the Agriculture Building at the Graham County Fairgrounds in Safford fills with RVs and cars. The Matheson Music Festival’s camping rules make one exception to the usual order of a campground: there are no quiet hours for acoustic music, and jamming is encouraged around the clock for the length of the festival. Generators are another matter. They stay off before 8 a.m. and after 10 p.m., and the southeast corner of the lot is kept generator-free. No campsites are reserved, and campers who spread out may be asked to make room for others. The rules warn that it can get windy and require weights or tie-downs on every canopy. Fires are propane only. There is no potable water on the grounds.

The Ag Building itself is heated. The city and county supply the chairs inside it and in the jam rooms. Rows of concert seating face the Main Stage, and the festival asks people not to talk there so others can hear the show. Between main-stage acts, musicians gather in tents for impromptu jams that listeners can follow. Food trucks and booths make up Vendor City in the East Side Building, and outside meals are not allowed in the concert area. No alcohol is served, and wristbands stay on throughout. Children up to 17 get in free. The ticket page asks families to count them so the organizers can keep “Growing the Grass” one generation at a time.

The Matheson Music Foundation describes its program as Americana, bluegrass and folk, with free workshops for children and other learners. The festival’s site also lists performances around town during festival week. These include a showcase in the lobby of the Eastern Arizona College Activities Center, lunchtime busking downtown at Ginaveve’s, an evening show at the college, and a Thursday night of live performances at Fancy Pizza. The site and the Arizona Old Time Fiddlers’ calendar give the 2027 festival as February 18–21, with festival camping opening at noon on Thursday, February 18. Gila Valley Central reported that the dates announced at the 2026 festival were Feb. 10–15.

A wedding on Valentine’s Day

The Eastern Arizona Courier billed the 2026 festival as a “six-day celebration of bluegrass, old-time, country, Americana, and traditional acoustic music — created to inspire the next generation of musicians,” and reported that it had been greatly expanded. Gila Valley Central called it the third annual. Headliners included the Honey Buckets, Cisco and the Racecars, and Edgar Loudermilk.

On Saturday afternoon, Ettore Buzzini and the Faultliners drew a standing ovation. They played classical music on the banjo, traditional bluegrass, and pop hits in a bluegrass style. “When I heard Earl Scruggs, it was like I was hit by lightning,” Buzzini said. “That’s what started my music.” A band called Better than Nothing appeared in the Pros and Kids Band Scramble, which puts up-and-coming artists on the stage.

That Saturday was February 14. The festival’s directors, Brianna DeRusha and Joe Baxter, played four songs for the crowd in the Ag Building and then married there. The couple supplied music along with headliners Phoebe Hunt and Dominick Leslie. The Courier had called the wedding one new activity “unlikely to be repeated next year, unless it’s somebody else tying the knot.” Afterward Brianna said, “It was like synergy between the festival and getting ready, and having everyone together. This is our community, this is our people, these are our friends and family.” Of the year’s lineup she said, “We drove a lot and we met a lot of people. We found good talent and we made sure to stay connected. And we made friends.”

The DeRushas’ foundation

Kevin and Ginny DeRusha founded the Matheson Music Foundation, a nonprofit that teaches voice, piano, fiddle, ukulele and guitar, with emphasis on music therapy, theory and songwriting. Brianna DeRusha is its executive director and festival director. Joe Baxter is executive secretary and festival director, and he curates the workshop lineup. Beyond the festival, the foundation runs kids’ music camps and community concerts. At the 2025 Safford Spring Festival it set up an instrument petting zoo downtown.

Accounts of the festival’s first year disagree. The foundation’s About Us page says it launched the first Matheson Music Festival in 2023, drawing hundreds of attendees and musicians from across the region. A Gila Valley Central article of April 2025 puts the first festival in February 2024, with more than 1,200 attendees. A photo caption in the Eastern Arizona Courier dates the first festival to February 2025.

The forty-fifth fiddle contest

In February 2024, Gila Valley Central reported the event at the fairgrounds under an older name: the Matheson Music Foundation’s 45th annual Gila Valley Fiddle Contest and Music Festival. Workshops ran all four days. The contests were open to everyone from those barely old enough to hold a fiddle and bow to those in their 90s. Cold, wet weather that year canceled some planned outdoor activities.

The Nashville recording artist Phoebe Hunt sang the title track of her album “Nothing Else Matters” as a duet with Halle Johnson, age 3. “I’m just so glad that there’s an event here in Safford, Ariz., that is promoting education and fiddle music, and keeping the fiddle tradition alive,” Hunt said. The Edgar Loudermilk Band and Three Angstrom Flat also played. Saturday brought a Sweetheart Valentine’s Dance and Sunday a Gospel breakfast.

Jess Barry, a veteran fiddler, took first in Show Your Stuff, Trick and Fancy, and the Open Division, and shared first in Twin Fiddle with Heather Perrazo. “You just never know when you’re going to make a bobble, but I think it went pretty well,” he said. The Open Division scores ran Jess Barry, 850; Henry T. Fiddler, 826; and in third, with 796, Kevin DeRusha.