John William Fenton

Kinsale, County Cork, Ireland gave birth to John William Fenton in 1828 or 1831, launching the life of the man who would become the father of band music in Japan. That Atlantic port released a musician across the world, where he taught naval cadets and helped shape Kimigayo into a national anthem. The distance between a small Irish town and the heart of a modern empire becomes strange and beautiful when one life stretches across it.