HEINICKE, AUGUST MORITZ HERMANN (1863-1949), musician, was born on 21 July 1863 at Dresden, Saxony, son of August Moritz Hermann Heinicke, brush manufacturer, and his wife, amateur musicians. From 10 Heinicke studied at the Royal Conservatorium of Music, Dresden; among his teachers was the violin virtuoso, Eduard Rappoldi. ….

In 1890 he was appointed violin teacher at the Adelaide College of Music; contracts had been signed in Berlin. He was met in Adelaide on 12 June by college founders Gotthold Reimann and Cecil Sharp who recognized him by his long hair, 'surely the best characteristic by which to recognise a German musician'. Soon he was acclaimed as Adelaide's premier violinist and violin teacher: …

When theElder Conservatorium of Music opened at the University of Adelaide in 1898, the college closed and Heinicke became a senior teacher there.

His other major impact in the 1890s was as a conductor. In 1893 Charles Cawthorne’s Adelaide Orchestra had become Heinicke's Grand Orchestra, with forty-five players; it soon became the most popular of the local musical groups. Heinicke planned to provide popular programmes, then to cultivate the taste of players and audience for orchestral music. In 1898 his group was known as the Conservatorium Grand Orchestra, including students and amateurs, but university regulations prevented his continuing as conductor when it became the Adelaide Grand Orchestra. Heinicke continued to conduct a depleted conservatorium orchestra until 1910. Next year he reformed his Grand Orchestra which survived until 1914.

….. In 1931 he formed his last orchestra, the Adelaide Philharmonic, arranging three concerts in the Exhibition Hall and mainly using unemployed musicians; but they failed financially.

Early pictures of Heinicke show him as debonair, confident, with a jauntily twisted moustache. Loved by his family and students, he was a perfectionist with his pupils and often impatient. He had a sense of humour, but 'professionally, took himself a bit seriously'. ..

From Australian Dictionary of Biography