BZ INTERVIEW with Josef Heckle, who, as division manager at the youth music school, is being given a concert to say goodbye.
. For more than 40 years, Josef Heckle has given countless children and young people clarinet and saxophone lessons and introduced them to different styles of music. On September 1st, the meritorious clarinet and saxophone teacher and head of department at the youth music school Südlicher Breisgau (JMS) and former head of the wind instruments classes at various schools in Bad Krozingen and the surrounding area will retire. He is said goodbye at the JMS student concert on July 20th in the Bad Krozingen Kurhaus. The BZ spoke to Heckle.
BZ: The youth music school Südlicher Breisgau emerged in 1978 from the youth music school in Staufen, which had been founded two years previously. What role did you play in founding the JMS, which then consisted of twelve member congregations?
Heckle: I didn’t play a role back then, I was the youth band conductor of the Bad Krozingen community band and youth leader in the Markgräfler Musikverband. I grew up with brass band music in Bad Krozingen. I was a brass band practitioner, studied musicology at the University of Freiburg and trained as a part-time conductor at the Trossingen Federal Academy. I was also a conductor of music clubs and a lecturer in the Markgräfler Wind Music Association and at the BDB Wind Academy, which I was able to help found in Staufen in 1998.
BZ: So how did you come to JMS?
Heckle: I soon realized that the youth work in many brass band clubs was in a bad way. There were also some motivated students who taught young musicians for music clubs. The youth music school initially focused on string and piano lessons. So in 1990 I made the suggestion to the then headmaster Christoph Büscher to open the JMS to brass band music and to take on my colleagues and myself as teachers. That’s how it happened, some of those from back then are still teaching today, more than 30 years later.
BZ: 44 years of instrument lessons, from beginners to high school graduates, hasn’t that gotten boring to you?
Heckle: No, not at all (laughs). It’s always different students. Take a look around here (points to the shelves in his study and classroom). There is so much different literature, such a wide variety of pieces and melodies. As needed, I adapt pieces for students of different ability levels or rewrite them for a specific cast. For example for a school concert. That still gives me a lot of pleasure.
BZ: What role does the clarinet play in your personal life?
Heckle: I learned to love it as a teenager and initially decided that it should remain my hobby and not study music. Ultimately, the clarinet is the focus of my professional life, which I see as a mixture of work and hobby. The borders are fluid. I also play in a clarinet trio and a saxophone quartet. After we took a break for the last two years, I want to start again when I retire.
BZ: You were also the one who established the concept of brass classes at the JMS in 2002. How did that happen?
Heckle: As a member of the International Society for the Study of Wind Music, I had become acquainted with the American concept of college bands at conferences. The Americans had integrated wind player training into school lessons. For us it was a completely new approach and I wanted to implement this concept in our region. So we started in October 2002 with the third and fourth graders in a cooperation between JMS, the Bad Krozingen parish band and the Landeck School. The concept of the wind classes combines individual instrument lessons in small groups and class lessons. The instruments will be provided. The brass classes have proven themselves – with some modifications – to this day, there are many schools in the JMS area.
BZ: Sebastian Kroll will take over your previous duties as division manager. What are these tasks?
Heckle: As department head, I am in close contact with the teachers at the JMS, I organize the five to six student concerts per year, make sure that the classrooms are available and much more. But I won’t give up teaching entirely. I will continue to give clarinet and saxophone lessons to around 25 children and young people in the future.
Josef Heckle is a clarinet and saxophone teacher, musicologist and brass band conductor. The 65-year-old has been a member of the municipal council in Bad Krozingen since 1999, second deputy mayor, member of the district council and the regional association of the southern Upper Rhine.
The farewell takes place at the student concert of the youth music school with a performance by the Young Lions Big Band on Wednesday, July 20 at 6 p.m. in the Kurhaus Bistro in Bad Krozingen
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