Jay Ungar and Molly Mason’s Ashokan camps in the Catskill Mountains are some of the most sought after workshop opportunities for musicians but can only take a limited number of attendees each year.   When we heard that Jay and Molly would be in town the day before our Fiddle Festival in August we saw an opportunity too special to pass by.   If you would like the experience of learning from and playing with legends then call the  phone # above and reserve your spot.  They will be splitting the group into rhythm (guitar, piano) or melody (fiddle) and after each group masters their sections, they will combine to play as a group.

 Jay Ungar & Molly Mason draw on the most beautiful tunes from a variety of traditions, along with their own stand out original compositions.  Jay & Molly play mountain music, New York style. Residing in the Catskill Mountains, where they served as Composers in Residence for the region in the late 1990s, this musical duo is well aware of New York’s historic role as a crossroads of fiddle traditions. With this knowledge, Jay & Molly have a special focus on new and exciting tunes from the Catskill region that spawned recent classics like “Ashokan Farewell,” “The Lovers’ Waltz” and “The Wizard’s Walk.” Haling from Saugerties, between the Irish Catskills to the north (Leeds and E. Durham) and the Borscht Belt to the south (Sullivan County), many of the duo’s latest creations have a sound that can best be described as Celto-Klezmer music. But regardless of what you call it, the music speaks for itself as it ranges from hard driving jigs and reels to achingly beautiful waltzes and airs. In the mid twentieth century fiddlers seemed to be a rare breed in New York, but New York State fiddling didn’t die, it just went underground. Happily it has reemerged alive and well in the current international revival of fiddle music. Jay Ungar & Molly Mason have been an important part of that revival their other musical contributions to historical documentaries by Ken Burns and other filmmakers, their Ashokan Fiddle & Dance Camps that started in 1980 and their numerous original fiddle tunes many of which have become absorbed into the repertoire of traditional fiddlers and violinists from Cajun, to Celtic to Classical.