Jay Ungar

Most widely known for his structure, “Ashokan Farewell,” the Grammy-winning and Emmy-nominated theme track of Ken Burns up’ PBS documentary series, The Civil Battle, Jay Ungar offers performed and recorded with mid-’60s rock-band, Cat Mom & the FOREVER Newsboys, the Putnam Nation String Music group, Fiddle Fever, the David Bromberg Music group, and in duos along with his wife, Molly Mason, and his ex-wife, Lyn Hardy. The founder from the Fiddle & Dance Workshop at Ashokan, a Catskill Hill camp, in 1980, Ungar offers spearheaded the revival in traditional string music group music and dance. The child of immigrant parents, Ungar was raised hearing traditional Hungarian and Macedonian music. Beginning violin lessons at age seven, Ungar was quickly playing by hearing and composing his very own melodies. While participating in the SENIOR HIGH SCHOOL of Music and Artwork, he was presented, by close friends, to bluegrass and traditional folk music. In the first ’60s, Ungar journeyed to NEW YORK and Tennessee searching for outdated timey folk music artists. Upon his come back, he became associated with the root base music community in Greenwich Community. A founding person in Cat Mom & the FOREVER Newsboys, Ungar briefly left the music group before they documented their first record which included a hit, “CLASSIC Stone,” in 1969. He rejoined the group because of their second record, Albion Doowah. In the middle-’70s, Ungar was an associate from the David Bromberg Music group, an organization dubbed, “The World’s initial folk orchestra.” Between 1980 and 1984, Ungar used Fiddle Fever, an eclectic string music group that also included fiddler Matt Glaser, fiddle and viola participant Evan Stover, acoustic guitarist Russ Barenberg and acoustic bassist Molly Mason. Although he proved helpful within a duo along with his then-wife Lyn Hardy, pursuing Fiddle Fever’s disbanding, the relationship fell aside with Ungar heading on to function in a duo with Mason. Ungar and Mason had been wedded in 1991. Furthermore to his focus on the soundtrack of Ken Uses up’ Civil Battle, Ungar has constructed and performed in the soundtracks of Uses up’ documentaries including Football, The Western world, Thomas Jefferson, and Lewis & Clark. Ungar’s fiddling was also noticed within the soundtracks of movies Brother’s Keeper and Legends from the Fall. Ungar and Mason possess made numerous looks on Garrison Keillor’s Country wide Public Radio display, A Prairie House Friend. In 1992, Ungar and Mason followed vocalist Thomas Hampson with an album-length tribute towards the tunes of Stephen Foster, American Dreamer. Harvest House: Music for those Seasons adopted in 1999.