The 50th annual George London Foundation Competition for young American and Canadian opera singers has been postponed until next year.

The competition was set to take place in April 2021 and Nora London, the foundation’s president, and John Hauser, its executive director said, “while the overall health situation is improving both across the country and in New York City, we see that it is not yet where it needs to be for us to hold the event as safely and effectively as we would like.

As a result, the competition will take place in 2022 and semi-final rounds will be held on Feb. 21-23 while the final round will take place on Feb. 25. The final round is a public event at New York’s Morgan Library & Museum.

The competition typically confers five George London Awards of $10,000 each. The remaining finalists receive Encouragement Awards of $1,000. In 2020 the winners were sopranos Jessica Faselt and Jana McIntyre and mezzo-sopranos Katherine Beck, Lindsay Kate Brown, and Anne Maguire. Past winners include  Christine Brewer, Joyce DiDonato, Renée Fleming, Christine Goerke, Catherine Malfitano, James Morris, Matthew Polenzani, Sondra Radvanovsky, Neil Shicoff, and Dawn Upshaw.