The service of Choral Evensong includes the “St. Thomas Service” by Trevor Weston (b. 1967). Weston is the son of immigrants from Barbados whose works often touch on themes of slavery and the history of AfricanAmericans in the United States. His commissioned oratorio, American Lamentations, premiered in May at St. Thomas Fifth Avenue in New York City, dealing with the Episcopal Church’s delicate relationship with enslavement and racial inequality. (As a boy Weston was a choral scholar at the St. Thomas Choir School.)

Another piece, a requiem, celebrated enslaved workers on the rice plantations of South Carolina. He is the winner of the first Emerging Black Composers Project, sponsored by the San Francisco Conservatory of Music and the San Francisco Symphony. His orchestral work Push was inspired by a comment by Antonin Dvorak — about Americans’ limitless enthusiasm for all things new, the “American push” — and premiered at the San Francisco Symphony in September 2022.

Weston has a doctorate in music from the University of California, Berkeley. He is head of the music department at Drew University in New Jersey and teaches at the Juilliard School.

An organ prelude, at 4:45 p.m., offers Max Reger’s Choralfantasie über ‘Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott,’ Op. 27, in celebration of the composer’s 150th birthday. The Cathedral Chamber Choir sings, and Music Director Dwight Thomas is director and organist. A freewill offering is taken, and a light reception follows.