Richard Letts

Richard Albert Letts (born Sydney, 3 August 1935) is a music advocate and administrator.

Richard Letts trained as a classical pianist and composer and worked as a jazz band leader in his early years. In 1964 he moved to the University of California (Berkeley) where he completed his Ph.D. in 1971. 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. In 1980 he became Director of the MacPhail Center for the Arts, the downtown music school of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and in 1981 was elected Vice-President of the National Guild of Community Schools of the Arts.

In 1982 Dr Letts returned to Australia as Director of the Music Board of the Australia Council, where he initiated major developments in policy that "had a profound influence in reshaping the pattern of government support for music in Australia" (Bebbington 1997). He became Director of the Australian Music Centre in 1987, and introduced programs in digitisation, record production, publishing, retailing, the awards program and others. In 1994, he founded the Music Council of Australia, of which he is currently (2009) the Executive Director.

In 2005, he was elected President of the International Music Council, based in UNESCO in Paris, and has been responsible for some major innovations in its program including establishment of an international Music Sector Development Program, the weekly e-bulletin Music World News and the initiation of the IMC Musical Rights Awards.

All monographs available for loan from Australian Music Centre

A diverse range of articles is available from the Music Council of Australia's Forum. See further references in the Music Council of Australia entry.

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