Shōzō Koyama

KOYAMA, Shōzō. b. Nagaeno-ken, Japan, 3 October 1930; d. Ichikawa City, Chiba Prefecture, Japan, 2017. Koyama is the composer of the tune MIKOTOBA, taken from the first word of the hymn in ‘Mikotoba o kudasai’ in transliterated Japanese by Yasushige Imakoma*. The English paraphrase, ‘Send your Word’*, was prepared by Nobuaki Hanaoka*. Koyama learned Christian hymns during his student days during family worship in Nakano Prefecture. Following his baptism and graduation from Kunitachi College of Music, he was a lecturer at Tamagawa University. After serving as a professor at the distinguished Kunitachi College of Music from 1959 to 1995, he retired as an emeritus professor (Loh, 2011, p...