Jay Ungar and Molly Mason

What better way to support one of the county’s best known living history museums and largest local Civil War re-enactment site, Museum Village, than by coming to hear one of the Hudson Valley’s best loved musical performing artists Jay Ungar and Molly Mason at the Lycian Centre in Sugar Loaf on October 14th at 2:00 p.m. Jay and Molly, who have performed on Garrison Keillor’s “A Prairie Home Companion” are highly acclaimed for their musical sound tracks in Ken Burn’s award-winning Civil War series on PBS, the award winning film, “Brothers Keeper” and “Legends of the Fall”. They have their own radio show on WAMC out of Poughkeepsie titled, “Dancing On Air” and are no strangers to Museum Village. Jay first remembers visiting Museum Village as a child. In the early 1980’s, through former MV Director Bart Roselli who also played banjo, he and Molly ran an old-time “Fiddlers’ Day” for three years at Museum Village, where 19th century history is kept alive through educational programs and annual events such as Civil War Weekend. Professional and amateur fiddlers signed up to play and learn from each other. One of their best loved tunes, “Ashokan Farewell” has been heard around the world and was written by Jay at the end of one of their early camps when he was looking for a Scottish fiddle tune that might capture the melancholy feeling he had about it being over for the summer. When he didn’t quite find one that did, he found himself playing his own notes and the tune of it just came to him and brought tears to his eyes and was nominated for an Emmy when it appeared in Ken Burns Civil War series. It seems a natural fit having Jay and Molly, who have played many songs from the 1800’s to perform at a fundraiser for a living museum that preserves history and many artifacts from the 1800’s. When asked how they became interested in preserving early forms of music, such as old time fiddling or swing, Jay says that he never looked at it as preserving this music, but keeping it relevant. “In preserving, a person might drift into playing music the way it was played when it was written.” He explains that when they play it today, it might be for different reasons, in different settings with different instruments and different personal motivations on some levels. If he finds a tune that he likes and it feels relevant, exciting and fun for him, then an audience might find it relevant, exciting and fun as well. Molly adds “it is kind of intriguing, playing tunes with names from the past that pique curiosity with a word in the name that we don’t understand.” Some of the songs are about something long gone, but still relevant today. Whatever music they happen to be playing, when they perform together live on stage, they have a magical chemistry that is natural to them because of their love for what they do. For tickets: call the Lycian Centre Box Office at 845.469.2287 or buy tickets online @ www.museumvillage.org. Ticket prices: $37 children (ages 14 & under)/students/seniors (65 & up); $47 adults; $75 benefactors (includes concert, reception, contribution.) $40 for reception only. Children do not need to purchase benefit tickets to attend reception with family. This concert is made possible in part, by the generous sponsorship of Berson+Corrado, Frontier Communications, and Wallace & Berry.