Wilhelmina Koch

Wilhelmina (Mina or Minna) Amalie Koch (22 February 1845 – 6 March 1924) was a German composer of sacred and secular song melodies, biblical motets and choral and instrumental music. She is one of only four women that have had compositions included in the Protestant hymnal. Biography Mina Koch was born in Waldböckelheim. She was the second of six children of Waldböckelheim pastor Karl August Schapper (1815–1898). She spent her childhood in Münster am Stein and in Koblenz. When she was eleven years old her mother Schapper Amalie née Weinrich (1816–1856) died. In 1860 her father became the Professor and Director of the Royal Theological Seminary and Superintendent for Wittenberg. The family moved there to a big house at the parish church square where Johann Bugenhagen had lived and where Martin Luther and Philipp Melanchthon had met. Mina Koch spent the first years there in a girls’ school in Droyßig at Zeitz, where her Confirmation was celebrated. The Wittenberg church music director and organist Carl Stein (1824–1902) gave her music theory and harmony lessons. On 27 April 1865 she was married to August Koch (1836–1910) in the Wittenberg church with her father officiating. Mina Koch