There are high hopes that the National Jazz Festival will be back on Tauranga's music and festival menu again this coming year. The festival was successfully held at Easter in 2021 while the uncertainties of Covid impacted many other events during the year.

With Christmas here, much of the 2022 festival has already been planned, so the team behind the scenes can take a well-deserved summer break.

'All the very best for Christmas and New Year from Tauranga's National Jazz Festival,” says festival director Marc Anderson.

The National Jazz Festival is scheduled for Easter 2022, with an extended festival running across seven days from Tuesday, April 12 to Monday, April 18.

'Starting with the inspiring National Youth Jazz Competition followed by our Jazz Village, Downtown Carnival, The Baycourt Concert Series and rounding up with the new ‘Jazz at the Mount' on Easter Monday, with some other really cool music events in between, the Jazz Festival will bring great music to Tauranga for everyone to enjoy,” says Marc.

Bay Community & Arts Centre will hold the Concert Series from April 14-17. The Historic Jazz Village event will take place on Good Friday, April 15; the Downtown Carnival on April 16-17, and Jazz at the Mount on Easter Monday April 18.

The Tauranga Jazz Society has a monthly Wednesday evening jazz event providing local musicians with the opportunity to play together and develop their musicianship as well as grow the jazz community in Tauranga.

Tauranga's 58th National Jazz Festival was one of a string of event cancellations in 2020 due to the COVID-19 lockdown. This was the first year in the festival's 58 year history that the jazz festival had not been able to go ahead, but the organisers remained positively upbeat despite the drop in revenue and financial loss incurred, and went into 2021 with a successful and much enjoyed festival at Easter.

The National Jazz Festival is a finalist in the Event Excellence Award of the 2022 TECT Community Awards which will be announced at Baycourt Community and Arts Centre on March 17, 2022.

'During Christmas and New Year we wish you all the best, we hope that you can love and laugh with the people you want to be with and sing, dance and listen to great music,” says Marc. More information on the National Jazz Festival can be found at www.jazz.org.nz