Jay Ungar: Ashokan Farewell - Cameron and Maggie

Performed by Cameron (violin) and Maggie (piano) at thebloglamusic...
Jay Ungar was born in 1946 in New York City, the son of immigrant Jewish parents. He frequented Greenwich Village music venues as a teenager and in the late 1960s, he became a member of Cat Mother and the All Night News Boys. Later, he joined the Putnam String County Band. In 1991, Ungar married fellow musician Molly Mason, whom he had met in the 1970s, and they continue to perform together today with their band, Swingology.
Ungar composed Ashokan Farewell as a lament. Ungar wrote: "Ashokan is the name of a camp in New York's Catskill Mountains where I and my wife, Molly Mason, run music and dance programs for adults each summer... In 1982, shortly after camp had closed for the season, I was feeling melancholy. I missed the music and dancing and especially the people and the special way of life that had evolved at camp. Picking up my fiddle, I began to compose a lament. By the time the piece had come together, I was in tears. It went unnamed until Molly suggested Ashokan Farewell."
Ashokan Farewell was used as the theme to the Ken Burns documentary The Civil War.