Jay Ungar (born 1946) wrote Ashokan Farewell, a tune that fiddlers and orchestras around the world now play. He composed it in 1982, and Ken Burns used it for 59 minutes of the 11 hour PBS series The Civil War in 1990. Ungar and his wife Molly Mason have run the Ashokan fiddle and dance camps in the Catskills since 1980. The National Fiddler Hall of Fame inducted him in 2015.
Why Ungar matters
A fiddler from the Bronx wrote a Scottish lament about a summer camp, and it became the sound of the American Civil War. That tune now sits in every fiddler’s waltz set, and it draws people into fiddle music who never heard a jam. Ungar also built the camp model. The Ashokan camps have taught fiddling and dancing to adults and families for more than four decades, and camps across the country copy that format.
Life and career
Ungar was born on November 14, 1946, in the Bronx, New York, and lived there until he was 16. He grew up on pop music of the 1940s and 1950s, then found folk music in the Greenwich Village coffeehouses of the 1960s. He went south to North Carolina and Tennessee to find traditional players. In the late 1960s he played in the rock band Cat Mother and the All Night Newsboys. He then formed the Putnam String County Band, an old-time and swing group, and recorded with Lyn Hardy in the 1970s.
He met Molly Mason in the late 1970s at the Towne Crier, a club in rural New York. Mason went to Minnesota to play in the house band of A Prairie Home Companion. Back in New York, Ungar formed Fiddle Fever with fiddlers Matt Glaser and Evan Stover and guitarist Russ Barenberg. Mason joined on bass. The band’s first album came out on Flying Fish in 1981.
Ungar started the Ashokan music and dance camps in 1980 at the Ashokan Field Campus of SUNY New Paltz. He wrote Ashokan Farewell in 1982 after that summer’s camp ended, and Mason named it. Fiddle Fever recorded it in 1983 for Waltz of the Wind. Ken Burns heard the album in 1984 and used the tune in his film Huey. He then made it the main theme of The Civil War. The tune appears 25 times across the series. Ungar, Mason, and Fiddle Fever played most of the 19th century music on the soundtrack. Ungar earned an Emmy nomination, and the soundtrack won a Grammy.
Ungar and Mason married in 1991 and signed with Angel Records that year. They recorded American Dreamer, a Stephen Foster collection with baritone Thomas Hampson, then Brother’s Keeper, The Lovers’ Waltz, and Harvest Home. They scored more Burns films, played Legends of the Fall with the London Symphony, and recorded A Song of Home with flutist James Galway in 2002. Their family band includes daughter Ruth Ungar and Mike Merenda. The camps still run at the Ashokan Center each year.
Playing style
Ungar plays with a singer’s phrasing. He holds notes, lets them swell, and slides into the top of a phrase the way a Scottish fiddler leans into a slow air. His waltzes carry the melody in long bow strokes with little ornament, so the tune does the work. That is why Ashokan Farewell sounds old. He wrote it as a Scottish lament, and he plays it as one.
He is also a dance fiddler and a swing player. Fiddle Fever mixed old-time tunes with jazz, and Swingology, his band with Mason, moves from string band to swing band to Cajun band in one set. He plays mandolin as well as fiddle.
Influences and legacy
Ungar learned from the old-time players he sought out in the South and from the Scottish fiddle tradition. He had traveled through Scotland the summer he wrote Ashokan Farewell. Matt Glaser, Evan Stover, and Russ Barenberg were his partners in Fiddle Fever.
Ashokan Farewell has been recorded by Mark O’Connor, Pinchas Zukerman, James Galway, Jerry Garcia and David Grisman, and the Osborne Brothers. A recording by the Royal Marines band spent years on the British classical charts. The Ashokan camps have shaped fiddlers, dancers, and callers for more than four decades.
Signature tunes and songs
Ashokan Farewell The Lovers’ Waltz The Wizard’s Walk Waltz of the Wind.
Essential recordings
Fiddle Fever (Flying Fish, 1981) Waltz of the Wind, with Fiddle Fever (Flying Fish, 1984) The Civil War: Original Soundtrack Recording (Elektra Nonesuch, 1990) The Lovers’ Waltz, with Molly Mason (Angel Records, 1997) Harvest Home, with Molly Mason (Angel Records, 1999)
Awards and honors
Grammy Award, as a performer on The Civil War soundtrack (1990) Emmy nomination for Ashokan Farewell in The Civil War (1990) National Fiddler Hall of Fame (2015)
Watch and listen
Ungar and Mason play Ashokan Farewell with their family band for Folk Alley. Watch how little he moves the bow and how much sound he gets.
Ungar plays the tune with Shetland fiddler Aly Bain on the BBC’s Transatlantic Sessions. Listen for the Scottish lament under the American tune.
What to learn from Ungar
Learn Ashokan Farewell in D. It is two parts of slow melody, and every jam knows it. The technique to steal is his long bow. Play the first phrase on one down bow and make it swell in the middle. Then keep the ornaments out until you can make the plain melody sing. Most players rush waltzes. Ungar shows that a slow tune played with full bow strokes holds a room better than a fast one.
Sources
About Jay and Molly, official site The story of Ashokan Farewell, official site Ashokan Farewell: How a 20th-Century Melody Became an Anthem for the 19th, The Atlantic 2019 National Fiddler Hall of Fame inductions, Bluegrass Today Jay Ungar, Wikipedia Fiddle Fever, Fiddle Fever, Discogs Fiddle Fever, Waltz of the Wind, Discogs The Civil War, Original Soundtrack Recording, Discogs Jay Ungar & Molly Mason, The Lovers’ Waltz, Discogs Jay Ungar & Molly Mason, Harvest Home, Discogs
Related players
See the fiddle players hub and the fiddle guide for more players. Mark O’Connor recorded Ashokan Farewell, and Bruce Molsky works the same old-time ground. Darol Anger shares Ungar’s mix of old-time and swing. Russ Barenberg played guitar in Fiddle Fever.