“Ashokan Farewell” was recorded by Dave Earnhardt as a piano solo on Friday. Ashokan Farewell is the title theme of the television miniseries The Civil War, which aired on the PBS in 1990. In 1984, filmmaker Ken Burns heard “Ashokan Farewell” and was moved by it.The most famous arrangement of Ashokan Farewell begins with a solo violin, later accompanied by guitar. This version for solo piano was being recorded for the new Acoustitherapy Nature walk CD due out in September.
We used extensive cutting and pasting in Protools as well as the “New Take” feature which lays performance directly “under” one another. It allowed us to grab one phrase from this “take” and another phrase from another “take” to get that perfect feel.
Dave Earnhardt – Denver, Colorado. Dave has played the piano since the age of five. Classically-trained, he also developed his ability to play “by ear,” by imitating songs as he listened to them on the radio. This cobination of approaches led to his creation of a unique genre of classical jazz. He composed his first song, “Castanets,” when he was fourteen.
Song History - Fiddler Jay Ungar composed the waltz in 1982 in the style of a Scottish lament (e.g. Niel Gow’s lament for his second wife) or Irish air.
Before its use as the television series theme, “Ashokan Farewell” 
was recorded on “Waltz of the Wind,” the second album by the band Fiddle Fever. The musicians included Ungar and his wife, Molly Mason, who gave the tune its name. It has served as a good-night or farewell waltz at the annual Ashokan Fiddle & Dance Camps that Ungar and Mason run at the lakefront Ashokan Field Campus of the State University of New York at New Paltz.
(Ashokan was the name of a Catskill Region village that is now mostly covered by the pristine Ashokan Reservoir.)
In 1984, filmmaker Ken Burns heard “Ashokan Farewell” and was moved by it. He used it in two of his films: The Civil War, which features the original recording by Fiddle Fever in the beginning of the film, and his 1985 documentary on Huey Long.
The song is played 25 times throughout the eleven-hour series[1], including during the emotional reading of Sullivan Ballou’s letter to his wife in the first episode; it underlies almost an hour of film.
Viewers of the The Civil War frequently — and erroneously — believe the melody is a traditional tune that was played at the time of the Civil War. In fact, it is the only modern composition on the Burns documentary’s soundtrack; all other music is authentic 19th century music.