This video features Bobby McFerrin and a huge audience. It includes a lengthy introduction by McFerrin, but the music will soon follow. As McFerrin instructs, the Bach-Gounod setting of the Ave Maria is the combination of two musical pieces. A Bach prelude is the foundation and the Gounod setting of the Marian prayer sits atop it - tenderly and delicately so.
Besides the beauty of the composition, it is particularly moving for the way McFerrin pulls together the voice of a large audience with his simple and amazing vocalizing of the prelude.