For the second year in a row, Club Passim will take its beloved BCMFest online amid a meteoric rise in reported Covid cases.

Club Passim and its yearly Iguana Music Fund have awarded $40,000 to 23 musicians with strong ties to New England, ranging in size from $500 to $2,000.

A Covid-19 exposure has closed The Cantab Lounge until 5 p.m. Dec. 30, but its reopening last week over three nights included what felt like the true arrival of the rejuvenated bar, drawing in thirsty passersby with a rip-roaring performance from Chicken Slacks for the first time since early 2020.

Subcentral didn’t get permission to keep its music going until 5 a.m. on the weekends – but the school for DJs, producers and electronic music artists will be able to keep its member events open until 2 a.m. Thursday through Saturdays in Central Square.

A free outdoor concert is offered Saturday in Harvard Square by Club Passim with Boston-based, Indiana-raised (and Longy School of Music grad) Sadie Gustafson-Zook and Cambridge guitarist, banjoist and composer Ira Klein.

The Cantab Lounge will reopen either the week before or after Thanksgiving, returning the Central Square mainstay to public life after being closed some 20 months. When the Cantab reopens, it will pick up where it left off – with The Chicken Slacks performing every Thursday.

Club Passim’s twice-yearly music festival returns Friday through Monday for the Labor Day Weekend, with more than 50 artists performing live and remotely.

Fans of jazz and free-form music continue to be well served by the Creative Music Series and organizer Alex Lemski, which has a few upcoming dates and events to be aware of.

Somerville and Cambridge celebrate the return of live music with an all-local Saturday music festival cutely titled Nice, A Fest. “It’s just like, ‘Nice, we’re having a festival,’ or ‘Nice, we get to do this again,’” organizer Alex Prickett said.

A gift for Victoria Heitzmann’s birthday this year is easy: Just help crowdfund the album being produced by the recent CRLS grad before she heads off to study biochemistry in California.