Sir Bernard Thomas Heinze, AC, FRCM (1 July 1894 – 10 June 1982) was an Australian conductor, academic, and Director of the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music.
He conducted all the orchestras run by the ABC, most particularly the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, of which he was chief conductor from 1933 to 1950. Also, he was chief conductor of the Royal Melbourne Philharmonic from 1927, becoming Honorary Life Conductor in the 1960s, and continuing his association with the RMP until 1978.
In addition he was guest conductor of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra in 1939. Discouraged by Australian audiences' lack of interest in music, he founded Children's Concerts. He also initiated the Young Performers Awards, which continue to showcase emerging international talent.[1]
He introduced Australian audiences to the works of Anton Bruckner, Dmitri Shostakovich, Béla Bartók and William Walton, and promoted Australian composers. In 1949 he became the first Australian ever to be knighted for services to music. Through teaching and performance, not least via broadcasting, he played a central role in his country's artistic activities. In his later years he was, quite simply, the most influential single man in Australian music, one critic having declared: 'there is not a fibre of our musical life that has not been modified by his career.'