My setting of Ave Maria – possibly the most popular sacred text ever judging from the number of existing compositions based on these beautiful lyrics – was premiered by the Haga Motettkör conducted by Ulrike Heider in service at the Haga Church, Göteborg, in March. This one actually replaces an earlier Ave Maria I had composed in 2007 but was never really happy with. The new one came to me much more naturally and has a theme and flow that is uncomplicated and, hopefully, unpretentious. I can’t think of anything more wrong than doing being too pretentious with this text. It should just be natural, like the piece always existed and just had to be written down.

[audio:http://moviescoremedia.com/mikaelcarlsson_choralmusic/avemaria.mp3|titles=Ave Maria (Haga Motettkör/Ulrike Heider)]