Of all the places to discover the magical twang of the banjo — on a trip through the Appalachians, say, or at a bluegrass festival — Mark Rast found his true calling in one of the most unlikely places: in front of his television, watching the Top 40 teen dance show "American Bandstand."

"It's hard to imagine that anybody playing the banjo would have been on TV and rocking American 'Bandstand,' but hey, it was the 1970s," said Mark Rast, banjo player for the folk/bluegrass band Vinegar Creek Constituency.

"Pete Seeger was big then, and I guess the show was kind of following the trend," he said. "But as soon as I heard that guy start to play, I knew that I wanted to do that, too."

The Lancaster-based Vinegar Creek Constituency, a fixture at local venues such as McCleary's Pub, the Chameleon Club and Lancaster Dispensing Co., will help fans ring in 2009 at the Pennsylvania Academy of Music New Year's Eve celebration.

The band consists of Rast on banjo, Pierre Devitry on fiddle, Charlie Burnett on double bass and Jeff Bryson on mandolin. Leo DiSanto sings and plays guitar.

After discovering his chosen instrument on "American Bandstand," Rast went to his parents and asked for banjo lessons. His mother and father insisted he begin by renting the instrument rather than purchasing one outright.

"I was in the eighth grade and totally hooked," he said. "I loved the 'portable' sound of bluegrass. With rock 'n' roll, you know, you need so much equipment like amps and mixing boards and cords to plug in the electric guitar. But with the banjo, you just take it out of its case and play."

Hailing from St. Louis, Rast came to Lancaster in a roundabout way. Realizing a professional banjo player might not have the most stable of incomes, he decided to become a doctor and attended medical school at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Upon graduating, he served his residency in Ventura, Calif., just outside Los Angeles. In 1994, he moved to Lancaster, eventually taking a job with Lancaster General Hospital's residency program.

Because the community of central Pennsylvania banjo players is small, Rast soon found himself drafted to play in what would become Vinegar Creek Constituency. The band was only meant to be temporary — a thrown-together opening act for flat-pick guitarist Larry Keel.

"Larry Keel was coming to the Chameleon and they needed an opening act. So a couple of us in the area who were bluegrass players agreed to get together and form a band, with the intention that we would only play for that one night," he said. "As it turned out, we liked playing together so much we decided to keep going."

Performing everywhere from the North Museum to Harrisburg's Appalachian Brewing Co., Vinegar Creek Constituency has generated enough of a local following to warrant an album. The band released its self-titled debut in November.

The band recently won the Delfest Band Contest, which earned them a spot at the prestigious Del McCoury Music Festival held each spring in Cumberland, Md. The guys are busy planning their first tour, a trip through the South with stops in North Carolina, Kentucky and Tennessee.

"When people ask me to describe our music, I usually tell them it's 'acoustic roots music with a bluegrass feel,' something like the Avett Brothers or the Old Crow Medicine Show," Rast said. "One of the things people really like about us is that we do our own original stuff. ... And from our perspective, it's always fun to introduce our music to new folks."

Working in bluegrass, Rast sees a public fascination with his kind of American roots music, especially since the "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" soundtrack won Album of the Year at the 2001 Grammy Awards.

"The popularity of bluegrass seems to go up and down, but it has a core of followers, like me, who will always love it," Rast said. "It has a particular sound that can't be duplicated, and it touches people deeply, even those who have never heard it before."

Bluegrass, he said, is one of the few musical genres that opens its arms to families. "Especially at bluegrass festivals. As a father, it's great to be able to bring my kids and let them see me play."

At the Academy of Music's New Year's Eve gala Wednesday, Vinegar Creek will join the Buzz Jones Quartet and soloists Jennifer Lobo and Cathy Chemi to ring in the final year of the decade.

Also at the gala, patrons will enjoy a performance of Chopin's Ballade No. 1 in G minor by the current Miss Pennsylvania, Carnegie Mellon University grad student Kendria Perry. She will perform the piece before a national audience Jan. 24 at the Miss America pageant in Las Vegas.

The evening will see a premiere of Pennsylvania composer Jack Behrens' musical accompaniment to Ernest Thayer's 1888 poem "Casey at the Bat," to be read by John Witwer, voice of the Lancaster Barnstormers.

Tickets for the event cost $100 and include complimentary parking with shuttle service. For reservations or more information, call the academy at 399-9733 or visit www.pamusacad.org.