farmdoc's blog post number 303

In 1878 Sidney Baevski Myer was born Simcha Myer Baevski, in Russian Poland (now Belarus). A Jewish storekeeper’s son, he migrated to Australia in 1899 to join his brother Elcon Myer, with little money and little English. They established a small shop in Bendigo, they eventually began to prosper, and in 1911 they purchased a Bourke Street drapery. This, with adjoining properties added over the next 14 years, became the Myer Emporium – the centrepiece of the Myer chain of department stores. Sidney Myer died unexpectedly in 1934 aged 56. The Sidney Myer Charitable Trust, now the Sidney Myer Fund, was established from his will to continue his philanthropy. Its most famous project, the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register, and is loved by Melburnians and visitors. I have fond memories of balmy summer evenings there with Sweetheart Vivienne and our frolicking young daughters, picnicking on rugs as the sun sank, then lulled by the music in the gloaming, then jolted to full consciousness by the cannons at the end of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. The then Prime Minister Menzies officially opened the Bowl on 12 February 1959 – 50 years ago last Thursday. To celebrate, last Thursday the Melbourne Symphony played a free concert there, with the programme identical to the one exactly 50 years earlier. Happy Birthday, Sidney Myer Music Bowl. And thank you, Sir Sidney Myer.