Ave Maria (2024) - Benjamin Gabbay

My choral setting of the traditional Latin prayer text "Ave Maria," performed in Walter Hall at the University of Toronto on November 18, 2025. This work is a revised version of one of my earliest choral pieces from 2017.

List of performers, program notes, and full song text below.

Conductor: Benjamin Gabbay
Soprano I: Erica Harvey
Soprano II: Alexandra Koukarina
Alto I: Tamsin Spiller
Alto II: Ivan Vutev
Tenor: Jean-Paul Feo
Bass I: Rocco Marciano
Bass II: Nathaniel Kulin, Benjamin Gabbay

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Setting any text to music may be seen as a way of magnifying and adding additional dimensions to its meaning; similarly, this setting of what may be the most widely known Marian prayer takes its musical cues from the dramatic concepts embodied in each phrase of the text—from awe of the Divine to the realization of mortality. It expands an ordinary recitation into an emotional journey.

The opening arpeggiating chord is the motif from which much of the piece’s thematic material unfolds. Streams of overlapping voices, inspired by Renaissance polyphony, are continuously driven toward moments of reflective tranquility with a rhythmic elasticity reminiscent of plainchant.

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Ave Maria, gratia plena, Dominus tecum;
benedicta tu in mulieribus, et benedictus
fructus ventris tui, Jesus.

Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus,
nunc et in hora mortis nostrae. Amen.

~ Traditional Latin

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Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee;
blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed
is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

~ English translation