(Jay Ungar)
This this folk music composition, which is a waltz in D minor, was written by the musician Jay Ungar in 1982. Ashokan was a former village in the Catskill Mountains.
The music was written when the annual Ashokan Music & Dance Camps ended and takes on the style of of a Scottish lament. Jay Ungar is said to have described it as coming out of “a sense of loss and longing”.
The arrangement that s most familiar has a solo violin at the start which is then accompanied by a guitar and upright bass as the music progresses. A lesser known arrangement features Jay Ungar and his wife Molly Mason’s family band which also begins with the solo violin but then becomes accompanied by an acoustic guitar, two violins and a banjo.
The music was recorded on Waltz of the Wind by the Jay Ungar and Molly Mason’s band Fiddle Fever before later being used in 1985 in the documentary film Huey Long and as the title theme for the TV mini series The Civil War in 1990, which was nominated for an Emmy and won a Grammy Award for the soundtrack. In 2010 is was used in an episode of the TV series Louie and in 2018 it was heard in the premiere of the TV series Yellowstone.
Numerous artists have since performed cover version of the music, with some of these including the Adagio Trio, Nicola Benedetti, Celtic Woman, Phil Coulter, The Ebony Hillbillies, Tommy Emmanuel, James Galway, Mark O’Connor, Major John Perkins of the Band of Her Majesty’s Royal Marines, Tony Rice and many others.
Recordings
Electra 8260 ‘Civil War’ Soundtrack CD
Sources:
- http://jayandmolly.com/ashokan-farewell/ashokan-farewell-faq/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashokan_Farewell
- https://ashokancenter.org/camps/
- https://www.allmusic.com/song/ashokan-farewell-mt0007352172
- https://www.discogs.com/release/9117862-Various-Sullivan-Ballou-LetterAshokan-Farewell
- https://www.discogs.com/release/6522303-Fiddle-Fever-Waltz-Of-The-Wind