Each January, Martin Luther King Day is observed on the third Monday of the month, and in 2009, MLK day fell on January 19th.

To celebrate, the director of the Boston Children’s Chorus commissioned and premiered a new work from the American composer Trevor Weston. Rather than set words spoken by King, Weston took a different course:

“[Dr. King’s] speeches speak to … the beauty of living in a society where the truth of equality is actually realized and often demonstrate a broad historical perspective,” says Weston, “so I celebrated King by using texts from the African Saint Augustine and the African-American poet Paul Laurence Dunbar.”

From Saint Augustine’s “Confessions,” Weston includes the line, “O Truth, you give hearing to all who consult you … you answer clearly, but all men do not hear you,” and from a Dunbar work entitled “The Poet,” this line: “He sang of life, serenely sweet/With now and then a deeper note.”

Musically, Weston echoes works both medieval and modern, specifically the 12th century composer Hildegard von Bingen and the 20th century composer Morton Feldman, with a variation on the spiritual “Wade in the Water” tossed in for good measure.

The result is a haunting, inward-looking choral work that Weston entitled “Truth Tones.”

Trevor Weston "Truth Tones" Trinity Youth Chorus; Julian Wachner, conductor. Acis 72290