Citing a pandemic surge, Winter Jazzfest postpones most of its in-person events։ Photos, Video

The latest surge in COVID case numbers has already led to the closures of Broadway shows, the cancelations of travel plans, and the curtailing of engagements in jazz clubs — so it should come as no surprise that Winter Jazzfest would announce a change of plans.

The 18th annual edition, which had been scheduled for Jan. 13-22 in a range of venues around Manhattan and Brooklyn, has been postponed to an unspecified date.

Winter Jazzfest made the announcement in an email to advance ticketholders this afternoon. Here are the contents of that message.

Hello Winter Jazzfest Friends and Happy Holidays,

As you well know, the world is facing yet another challenge of our resolve and our spirits from the highly contagious Omicron variant of SARS CoV-2 (aka Covid-19).

After much internal deliberation, hearing from the musicians, our audience, friends in the medical community and our staff, we have decided that the most responsible decision for the general welfare of all of you, is to currently postpone most IN-PERSON events for 18th Annual NYC Winter Jazzfest to later dates.

Even if we were to follow all current NYC & NYS guidelines with vaccination requirements and masking enforcement, we know many of you would be anxious to attend and given the heightened transmissibility of this variant, we feel that this is the most prudent way to proceed. The safety of our patrons, our staff, all musicians and of YOU is our main priority.

We are arranging for several shows to be streamed during the original dates of the festival, from January 13-22 and will invite you to join us then. We will also let you know as soon as we have new dates planned for our postponed events.

The email includes partner offers for ticketholders, including a free digital membership to WaxPoetics and a three-month free trial to Qobuz. It also features this prompt:

In the meantime, we wanted to share with you an important initiative entitled THIS IS A MOVEMENT, that Winter Jazzfest was a part of formulating along with our friends at The Berklee Institute of Jazz and Gender Justice, M³ (Mutual Mentorship for Musicians), and The New School – School of Jazz to work towards a more equitable jazz community along the lines of gender. Please find out more about the convening that will stream live January 15-17, 2022