The Sydney Eisteddfod is an independent, community-based, not-for-profit organisation in Sydney, Australia.^[1]

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Sydney Eisteddfod presents an annual competitive festival with the help of arts and education professionals. The festival involves events for singers, dancers, actors, musicians, choirs, bands and orchestras, along with creative categories for composers, writers and poets.

Sydney Eisteddfod, previously known as the City of Sydney Eisteddfod, opened in 1933.^[2][3] The first eisteddfod took place from 9 to 26 August in the Sydney Town Hall, the Assembly Halls, the Railway Institute Halls and Paling's Concert Hall. The illustrated souvenir programme cost one shilling.^[4]

The Sydney Eisteddfod acts as a reference source for public enquiries about other competitions and opportunities, arts organisations and supports groups, performances presented by commercial and non-profit presenters; encourages opportunities for public performance by developing artists; promoting recitals, concerts and performances; nurtures interest in the performing and creative arts and cultivates future audiences.^{[clarification needed][citation needed]}

Sydney Eisteddfod won the City of Sydney Business Award, Cultural and Creative Services section in 2011 ^[5]

Co Patrons

• General David Hurley, Governor of New South Wales and Mrs Linda Hurley

Life Member

• Dame Marie Bashir

Vice-Patrons

• Sir Nicholas Shehadie
• Doug Sutherland

Artistic patrons

• Richard Bonynge
• Maina Gielgud

Ambassadors

• Angela Bishop
• Amelia Farrugia
• Joshua Horner
• Geoffrey T. Jones
• Simon Kenway
• Nicholas Milton
• Steven McRae
• Stuart Skelton
• Simon Tedeschi
• Simone Young
• Leone Ziegler

The Sydney Eisteddfod grew out of the Music Week Festival, first held in 1930. In 1932, representatives of the Music Week Festival and the Citizens of Sydney Organising Committee announced plans for a Great Eisteddfod to be held at the Town Hall in August 1933. The New South Wales State Conservatorium (now the Sydney Conservatorium of Music) and the President of the NSW Music Week Committee proposed holding a large-scale event to bring together the best musical and elocutionary talent of the Australian states.^[6]

The first Eisteddfod executive meeting was held on 20 February 1933 and the first Official Syllabus was released in April that year. The First City of Sydney Eisteddfod offered a program of 84 vocal, choral, speech, and musical events and drew 5,410 entries. It opened to great success on 19 August 1933 with artists including Joan Hammond, Ernest Llewellyn, and Joy Nichols.^{[citation needed]}

Apart from a four-year recess during the Pacific War^[7][8] the competition has continued ever since. The aria section was sponsored by the Sun News-Pictorial newspaper from 1949, organised in parallel with the Melbourne Sun Aria contests.^[9] Notable prizewinners include Joan Sutherland in 1949 and June Bronhill in 1950.

McDonald's Australia commenced its association with Sydney Eisteddfod in 1988 with naming rights sponsorship. The Eisteddfod was cancelled in 2020 due to health and safety concerns over the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia.

• Jennie Rowley Lees (2008). The Sydney Eisteddfod story : 1933–1941. Sydney Eisteddfod. ISBN 978-0-9757483-3-6.