Richard Letts trained as a classical pianist and composer and worked as a jazz band leader in his early years.
In 1972 he built and became the director of the East Bay Center for Performing Arts, a community performing arts school in a ghetto on San Francisco’s East Bay.
[citation needed] In 1994, he founded and was inaugural executive director of the Music Council of Australia.
[1] In 2005, he was elected president of the International Music Council, based in UNESCO in Paris.
The Sir Bernard Heinze Memorial Award is given to a person who has made an outstanding contribution to music in Australia.