Kenichi Gatayama 潟山 健一

Kenichi Gatayama 潟山 健一 plays English concertina, is a member of the EFDSS (English Folk Dance and Song Society) and has written a number of research papers on English Folk Song, particularly in reference to Sussex and the Copper family's repertoire. We met by chance whilst teaching at a local university.
We had grouped at the photocopier (aka village well) weekly since April 2007, and occasionally discussed a point of grammar, but we eventually discovered our common interest in traditional English song - Mr Gatayama spent time at the University of Sussex as a research fellow.
I had heard that there were some Copper Song enthusiasts in Japan (from members of the Sussex folk clubs) but, due slightly to UK data protection laws applying to EFDSS membership, and largely to my own lack of imagination in seeking them out independently (I should have asked a Copper), I only met Kenichi by coincidence.
His research papers are written in Japanese, on such topics as: A Note of the English Folksong Revival and Romanticism; A Note on Rottingdean, a Village of Folksongs and Songsters; A Note on the Englishness of English Folk Song, and another about the rhythm of Sussex songs.

There are currently 7 individual members of EFDSS in Japan, including Mr Gatayama and me, and one institution. Now to find the other five...

btw. It was at another Japanese photocopier (Lawson, Okazaki Hon-dori, 1992) that I first met my friend the English artist Charlie Foster-Hall who was subsequently commissioned to organise the Sussex Mural at Ardingly.