Ave Maria No. 20 – Mater Creatoris
for tenor, choir, and organ

Durata: ca. 10 minutes

Premiere:  August 30-31, 2024, St. Basil Chapel, Houston, TX

Hear a clip of Ave Maria No. 20 below, performed by Demetrious Sampson, Jr.; Yuri McCoy, organ, and Aquinas Ensemble, Brady Knapp, cond.:

Program notes:

Ave Maria No. 20 – Mater Creatoris is the 20th annual Ave Maria in my 50-year Ave Maria Project (2005- 2054). This year’s Ave opens the third decade of the project and closes Dante e la Donna, a special concert of compositions of mine in Italian..

After opening with the Latin prayer, Ave Maria No. 20 transitions into a passage from Canto XXXIII of Dante’s Paradiso. The music reflects an arrival to great heights, corresponding both to the summit of Dante’s journey in La Divina Commedia, and to the summit of the journey of this concert.

A special feature of this work is a musical quotation from the end of my new Dante Songs (composed immediately before this). This musical quotation is meant to highlight Dante’s quest for adequate words to praise una donna—a quest evident long before he began La Divina Commedia. The text associated with the musical quotation translates to: I believe she came down from heaven for our salvation… In a delicate paradox, Dante envisages this woman’s descent from heaven as the means by which we can ascend.

By Paradiso Canto XXXIII his words of praise for the Madonna reach a culmination that conclude his epic journey through eternity. In the same way, Ave Maria No. 20 marks the culmination of this concert’s journey through earthly to celestial love.