Grammy Awards postponed to March 21 attributable to Los Angeles coronavirus surge By Reuters

By Jill Serjeant

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -The Grammy Awards ceremony attributable to happen on Jan. 31 has been postponed to March 21 due to the coronavirus surge in Los Angeles, organizers mentioned on Tuesday.

The Recording Academy informed members in a memo that the ceremony to current the best honors within the music business was being delayed after talks with well being consultants and musicians.

“After considerate conversations with well being consultants, our community accomplice CBS, our host, and artists scheduled to seem, we’ve made the choice to postpone the 63rd Grammy Awards to March 21, 2021,” the interim president of the Recording Academy, Harvey Mason Jr., mentioned within the message seen by Reuters.

“The deteriorating COVID scenario in Los Angeles, the place hospital providers have been overwhelmed, ICUs have reached capability, and new steerage from state and native governments have all led us to conclude that suspending our present was the correct factor to do,” he added.

The postponement was earlier reported by Rolling Stone journal and Selection.

Los Angeles is experiencing a spike in coronavirus deaths and hospital admissions. Gyms, hair salons and eating places have been shut down and residents urged to remain at residence as a lot as doable.

Beyonce leads nominations for this 12 months’s Grammys with 9 nods in a November announcement that was overshadowed by a surprising snub for Canadian musician The Weeknd.

The Recording Academy had not introduced who could be performing on the present, which is often a three-hour combination of dwell performances by high worldwide musicians and speeches by winners.

Organizers of the annual Oscars ceremony final 12 months moved the 2021 presentation to April from late February due to the pandemic, whereas this 12 months’s Golden Globes ceremony was moved to Feb. 28 from its normal early January date.

Different main awards exhibits, together with tv’s Emmys and the MTV Video Music Awards, went forward final fall with a mixture of dwell, pre-recorded and socially distanced appearances by celebrities however with out an viewers.