German-born musician, composer, librettist, music director, teacher. The youngest son of a German doctor of medicine, Moritz Heuzenroeder developed a passion for music through childhood piano lessons and eventually undertook a course in advanced composition theory at the Stuttgart Royal Academy of Music (Germany). In 1872, shortly after having completed his studies, he emigrated to Australia. His decision in this matter is believed to have been influenced by a visit to the country seven or more years previously. Upon arriving in Australia he settled in Adelaide and quickly established himself as a teacher of singing and piano. Not surprisingly many of his friends were also expatriate Germans, and he subsequently became closely associated personally and professionally with organisations founded by them, including for example the South Australian German Club.
In 1882 two of Heuzenroeder's operettas, Singvogelchen and Onkel Beckers Geschichte were staged by an amateur company in Adelaide (the latter at the Albert Hall on 3 November). The following year he wrote the comic opera Faust and Gretchen (1883) for the German Club. That year also saw Heuzenroeder present an acclaimed series of concerts at the Victoria Hall in Gawler Place for Adelaide's upper social circle, which included the state governor Sir William Robinson, a keen patron of music and composer in his own right. It was around this time, too, that Heuzenroeder established the Adelaide Harmonie Society, an organisation for which he undertook the roles of music director and conductor, and through which he presented his own works along with various contemporary light operas. Following the completion of another comic opera, The Windmill, in 1891, Heuzenroeder began a collaboration with local writer Harry Congreve Evans that resulted in the most impressive work of his career, the two act opera Immomeema (1893). Although only one ballad remains from the entire score, along with a libretto containing the spoken dialogue and lyrics, it is clear from reviews published after both the 1893 premiere and 1894 revival that the work was met with much approval from critics and public alike. In addition to his operatic works, Heuzenroeder also composed for various other music forms, including songs, patriotic odes and piano pieces.
In early 1897 Heuzenroeder moved to the Barossa township of Tanunda, a place he had visited many times over the years as both a recitalist and accompanist for touring singers. On November 9 that same year, however, he died unexpectedly at the age of forty-eight, leaving the local community bereft of an important musical benefactor. Indeed, during the short period that he lived in the area Heuzenroeder was instrumental in founding both a local orchestra and a choral society in the nearby township of Angaston. As a teacher and recitalist Moritz Heuzenroeder also played a vital role in helping to establish the importance of music within the state of South Australia during the last decades of the nineteenth century.
