Born in 1946, Jay Ungar is an American fiddler, composer, and folk-music educator best known for his deep roots in traditional American and Celtic music. Raised in New York City, Ungar studied classical violin before turning to folk traditions, where he found a musical language grounded in community, dance, and oral transmission. With his wife and longtime collaborator Molly Mason, Ungar co-founded the Ashokan Music & Dance Camps in upstate New York’s Catskill Mountains, a gathering place for generations of traditional musicians. Ashokan Farewell, composed in 1982, is Ungar’s most widely known work and one of the most recognizable melodies in American music. Written as a quiet, reflective tune inspired by the end of a summer season at Ashokan, the piece took on an unexpected second life after it was featured prominently in Ken Burns’s documentary The Civil War. Although often mistaken for a 19th-century lament, Ashokan Farewell is a modern composition whose gentle modal harmonies and flowing melodic line evoke longing, remembrance, and collective loss. Its emotional universality, rooted in folk tradition yet unmistakably personal, has become a musical symbol of farewell, memory, and enduring human connection.