| HEID MUSIC – Making our community a more harmonious place to live. |
Peter Heid founded Heid Music in 1948, selling musical instruments and encouraging schools to offer music education. He is credited with bringing music and music education to the Fox Cities. Sixty years and three generations later, Heid Music is still the leading music emporium in Northeast Wisconsin with four music stores in Appleton, Green Bay and Wisconsin Rapids.
Heid Music sales include band instruments and orchestra instruments for beginners to professionals and is the leading instrument supplier to the Fox Valley Symphony, Appleton, Wisconsin. Piano sales include Clavinova, Boston, Essex, Kohler & Campbell, and Heid Music is one of only a handful of dealers to carry both Steinway and Yamaha in their showrooms. Along with guitars, amps and drums, Heid Music also features sheet music, music lessons and musical instrument repair. |
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Bob Heid, Todd Heid, president, and founder Peter Heid.
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Peter “Duke” Heid, founder of Heid Music and
Patron of the Arts, Passes Away at 91 Peter “Duke” Heid passed away on December 14, 2009. He was preceded in death by his wife, Margaret, and leaves behind three children—Paul (Carol), Appleton, Tom, El Sobrante, California, and Bob (Lisa), Greenville, seven grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. He was one month shy of his 92nd birthday.
Duke is often credited with bringing music appreciation and music education to the Fox Cities and opened the first Heid Music Store in 1948. Today, Duke’s legacy continues, with three generations of Heid family working at stores in Appleton, Green Bay and Wisconsin Rapids.
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Peter Heid |
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A sad week for music retailing
Peter (Duke) Heid, the founder of Heid Music, passed away yesterday. He enjoyed his career playing with many of the dance bands of the 1930s and 1940s in his hometown of Appleton, Wisconsin. After the war, he used his love of music to open a small store, Heid Music, in the heart of downtown Appleton. The store continued to grow over the years as Peter found specific product niches and sales techniques. However, he always looked for ways to increase the store’s relevance to the music community around them. In fact, at the time of our interview, Peter, at age 89, was reviewing ways the store could expand its string department. His two sons followed in his footsteps as did his grandchildren, making the store a third generation family business, something Duke was very proud of. His son Paul served a Chairman of the NAMM Board from 2003 until 2005 .
The following clip from his NAMM Oral History interview is one of my personal favorite stories from our collection. http://www.namm.org/library/oral-history/peter-heid |
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