Moritz Heuzenroeder, a mid-nineteenth century immigrant to Adelaide and the Barossa Valley, was a prominent composer, teacher, and conductor, as well as founder of several musical organisations and societies in South Australia. He arrived in South Australia at an early age with his family. After undertaking music studies at the Royal Academy in Stuttgart, he returned to Australia in 1872 and established a pedagogical practice in Adelaide, teaching singing and piano. He formed the Adelaide Harmonie Society in about 1886, for which organisation he produced numerous operettas, including Weber's Der Freischutz and Lecocq's Madame Angot.
Heuzenroeder composed five operas, but no complete scores are extant. His Singvogelchen (Little Song Bird), Onkel Beckers Geschichte (Uncle Becker's Story) and Faust und Gretchen, were produced in 1882-1883 with the Deutscher Mannergesangverein - all sung in German for the German community. His fourth, The Windmill, appeared in 1891. His final opera, Immomema, with libretto by H Congreve Evans, featured an Australian setting and an array of colourful Australian characters, including a squatter, prospector, alderman, and a chorus of stationhands, stockmen and women, numbering fifty in all. The Adelaide Operatic Society staged it in 1894. A number of published piano-vocal scores from this opera remain, including the songs Australia and The Green Little Isle of the Sea.
During his career, Heuzenroeder organised many private and semi-private concerts at which he and his students performed. He often performed works of Chopin. Sir William CF Robinson, Governor of South Australia from 1883-1889, was a frequent patron of these concerts. Heuzenroeder also performed on piano at performances of the Adelaide String Quartet Club. In his later years, he formed an orchestra at Tanunda and a choral society at Angaston.
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