Jack Campin; Whatever makes you think that Ashokan Farewell was not intended to have interpretive subtleties? When did Jay Ungar say that? And I've never heard before that it was written to be played en masse by a fiddle school (as their closing number). What makes you think it was?

Jay Ungar describes the song as coming out of "a sense of loss and longing" after the annual Ashokan Music & Dance Camps ended. 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 (1984). The musicians included Ungar and Mason.

Jay Ungar and Molly Mason included it on their album Harvest Home, released in 1999. Jay Ungar (fiddle) & Molly Mason (guitar, piano) play it on Fiddle Hell Online Jam #27 July 12 2020; the focus is on "Favorite Tunes from the Ashokan Camps" (which they have founded and have run for 40 years). Another arrangement, featuring Ungar, Mason, and their family band, is performed with two violins, an acoustic guitar, and a banjo, with the piece beginning with a solo violin. Then there is the performance on Transatlantic Sessions.

All these performances, with a certain amount of expressive refinement, presumably give some indication of how Jay Ungar imagined that his tune might be played.