The annual display of Christmas lights put up by Northeast Baltimore residents, known as Miracle on 34th Street, “is an outrageous display of light, music and color that regularly attracts thousands of sightseers to the Hampden block,” writes Elizabeth Nonemaker in Thursday’s (12/19) Baltimore Sun. “ ‘I’ve had governors on my porch and mayors. And now,’ [resident Bob] Hosier said, gesturing past a sea of blow-up Santas and plastic reindeer, ‘I have the BSO. Can’t get any better than this.’ Hosier was referring to Jonathan Jensen, double bassist with the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, tucked onto Hosier’s porch amidst a menagerie of Santas and Christmas dolls. Tonight, Jensen had left his bass at home, in favor of an electric piano that accompanied a quartet of singers from the Baltimore Choral Arts Society…. They were singing an original composition by Jensen, a ragtime-esque ode to the Hampden light display and the off-the-wall Baltimore artistry it exemplifies…. On December 21, ‘34th Street’ will be performed by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra as part of the orchestra’s annual musical variety show, the Holiday Spectacular…. Jensen said that the BSO’s performance will mark ‘the official world premiere of the song in any public kind of way.’ ”
In photo: Baltimore Symphony Orchestra bassist Jonathan Jensen accompanies Baltimore Choral Arts Society singers in his song “34th Street” at the street that inspired it. The orchestrated version of the song had its world premiere in the BSO’s Holiday Spectacular concert on Dec 21.
