Sir Bernard Thomas Heinze, AC (1 July 189410 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. 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.' Biography Bernard Heinze was born in Shepparton, Victoria on 1 July 1894, the son of Benjamin Heinze, a German-born watch-maker and jeweller, and his Yorkshire-born wife, Minnie Heinze, née Greenwell. Educated at St Patrick's Catholic College, Ballarat, Heinze received violin lessons at an early age, under the guidance of Walter Gude (1904–12) first in Ballarat, and later at the University of Melbourne under Franklin Peterson, before being awarded the (Sir William) Clarke Scholarship at the Royal College of Music in London (1913). World War I interrupted Heinze's studies and his career was put on hold; he received a commission in May 1916 with the British Royal Garrison Artillery Special Reserve Regiment and fought at Arras, Ypres, the Somme and Passchendaele. With the advent of peace, Heinze studied in Paris at the Schola Cantorum, under Vincent d'Indy. He returned home in 1923. When only 32 years old, he succeeded William Laver as Ormond Professor of Music at the University of Melbourne. He held this professorship till 1957, and played a crucial role in the creation of the Faculty of Music. Thus he influenced governmental education policy for the successful introduction of