Ashokan farewell mark oconnor biography

waltz by Jay Ungar

"Ashokan Farewell" is a musical piece composed by the American folk musicianJay Ungar in For many years, it served as a goodnight or farewell waltz at the annual Ashokan Fiddle & Dance Camps, run by Ungar and his wife Molly Mason, who named the tune after the Ashokan Field Campus (now the Ashokan Center) of SUNY New Paltz in Upstate New York.^[1]

The tune was used as the title theme of the PBStelevisiondocumentary series, The Civil War.^[2] Despite its late date of composition, it was included in the compilation album, Songs of the Civil War.

Background

The piece is a waltz in D major, composed in the style of a Scottishlament (e.g., Niel Gow's "Lament for His Second Wife").^[3] Jay Ungar describes the song as coming out of "a sense of loss and longing" after the annual Ashokan Music & Dance Camps ended.^[3] The most famous arrangement of the piece begins with a solo violin, later acco