We received this letter:
February 17, 2025
Dear Friends, Over forty-two years ago a group of individuals, business owners, musicians, educators, and lovers of jazz music created the Jazz Society of Pensacola. An organization, led by the passion of Dr. Norman Vickers, whose mission was, and still is, to advance jazz music and our connection to its history in Pensacola and along the Gulf Coast.
This history continues with a volunteer Board of Directors committed to the mission of Jazz Pensacola, attracting new members, facilitating free social forums for musicians and listeners, coordinating unique and affordable monthly jazz events, hosting a prize-winning annual student jazz competition, and hosting a yearly, free community jazz festival.
Of course, these activities come at a cost to the organization and are not sustainable in our current financial position due to the loss of funding for arts and culture events by the State of Florida, reductions in donations and other factors that need to be addressed not only to survive but thrive!
Therefore, the Board has decided to forego hosting a forty-third JazzFest in 2025. This decision was made after reviewing several options on what was best for the organization. While not an easy decision we focused on being financially responsible and the ability to produce a quality event.
For the rest of this fiscal year, the Board will focus on actions to adapt strategy and operations to secure the future of Jazz Pensacola, where we bring quality entertainment to the diverse community we serve. Your participation in this process is invited.
We remain committed to hosting our monthly Jazz Jam events for our student and community musicians and will proceed with our upcoming Student Jazz Competition on Saturday, March 22, at 7 p.m. Although free to the community, we highly encourage your attendance in support of our student performers, it means a lot to them. In the meantime, stay tuned for future announcements as we work to create an organization that you, our members, and the community we serve will be proud to support.
As always, I am open to discussing the matter with any member.
Sincerely,
Derrick Fishback
President Jazz Society of Pensacola